Production of Donor-Derived Offspring from Cryopreserved Ovarian Tissue in Japanese Quail (Coturnix japonica)1

Cryopreservation of avian ova and embryos is challenging because of the yolky structure of the egg. As an alternative, with the development of effective cryopreservation protocols, ovarian tissue cryopreservation could be used for cryobanking for birds. Pieces of ovarian tissue of week-old Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) were frozen at 0.5 degrees C/min in a programmable freezer or vitrified by immersion in liquid nitrogen. Straws containing slow-frozen samples were thawed in ice water, and vitrified samples were removed from the vials and transferred into sucrose, with the concentration lowered in sequence at room temperature. Cell viability of tissue was estimated by trypan blue assay, and tissue histology was examined by light microscopy. Frozen-thawed or vitrified-warmed tissue from WB (recessive plumage color) chicks was transplanted into week-old ovariectomized QO (wild-type plumage) chicks, with some chicks receiving fresh tissue as a control group. At sexual maturity, QO recipients were mated to WB males, and the production of WB offspring demonstrated successful cryopreservation and transplantation. Donor-derived offspring were obtained from the ovarian tissue that had been cryopreserved by either slow-freezing or vitrification. The vitrification protocol used in this study showed better outcomes at each level of evaluation. This study demonstrated that the function of ovarian tissue in avian species can be successfully preserved at subzero temperatures and recovered by transplantation. The vitrification protocol is recommended because of high efficiency and overall simplicity.