Cryopreservation of coral Acropora humilis sperm

Publication date: Available online 28 October 2017
Source:Cryobiology
Author(s): Voranop Viyakarn, Suchana Chavanich, Gabriella Chong, Sujune Tsai, Chiahsin Lin
Corals are sensitive to minute changes to their ecosystem; therefore, their sustainability is substantially threatened by the increasing number of destructive anthropogenic activities and unprecedented climate change. Although cryopreservation is an excellent method for cell preservation and conservation, coral cryopreservation has started only in 2000s. The present study developed a cryopreservation protocol for Acropora humilis sperm collected from the reefs in Sattahip Bay, Chonburi Province, Thailand. Located at a depth of approximately 3 m, the coral gamete bundles were collected with a mesh net during the spawning period of A. humilis in the evening. Immediately after collection, the sperm were isolated and subjected to two-step freezing with several cryoprotectants to determine the optimum freezing protocol. The motility assessment and viability assays indicated that 15-min equilibration with 2 M DMSO followed by cooling at 41.7 °C was the optimum cryopreservation protocol for A. humilis sperm. The post-thaw sperm achieved fertilization success of approximately 45%, and 35% developed into blastopore larvae. The present optimum protocol can facilitate the preservation of sperm for the species propagation and gene banking of similar corals and can be adopted for the preservation of other coral species.



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