Figure 1.

The minimum volume cooling concept applied to vitrification of an embryo and a cell sheet. A: The protocol of embryo vitrification using the minimum volume cooling (MVC) concept; the embryo is vitrified in a minimum volume of vitrification solution on a plastic or metal plate with high thermal conductivity [22,32]. B: For cryopreservation of triple-layered rabbit chondrocyte sheets, we developed a coating method in which the cultured cell sheet is thinly coated with a viscous vitrification solution containing permeable and non-permeable cryoprotectants. This enables the cell sheet to be vitrified in a minimum amount of vitrification solution in accordance with the MVC concept.