Table 1.

The number of EPN that were incorporated into and emerged from glycerol-Ca²⁺-alginate beads and the survival rate of EPN (n = 10)

EPN beads	Number of EPN per bead		EPN release rate (%)	EPN survival rate (%)***
	Incorporated*	Released** (Mean ± SE)	(Mean ± SE)	(Mean ± SE)
0.2 K	172	134.7 ± 3.1	78.3 ± 1.8	99.8 ± 0.1
0.5 K	430	265.4 ± 9.9	61.7 ± 2.3	99.8 ± 0.1
1 K	859	607.9 ± 18.5	70.8 ± 2.2	99.4 ± 0.2
2 K	1,718	1,483.8 ± 25.4	86.4 ± 1.5	98.6 ± 0.3
4 K	4,295	3,758.1 ± 91.4	87.5 ± 2.1	98.1 ± 0.4

*The number of incorporated EPN per bead estimated from the mean volume of a droplet of EPN-containing glycerol-alginate solution (85.9 ± 0.7 μl, mean ± SE, n = 50). EPN-containing glycerol-alginate solution was prepared to have approximately 200, 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000 EPN per 100 μl and simply named 0.2 K, 0.5 K, 1 K, 2 K and 4 K EPN beads, respectively. **After 7 days of storage of EPN beads under the influence of 18% of glycerol, glycerol-induced EPN quiescence was broken by diluting out glycerol of beads with excess of water and the number of released EPN was individually counted. ***The number of live EPN divided by the number of all the escaped EPN