A Non-Frozen Living Tissue Bank for Allotransplantation Using Green Tea Polyphenols

ABSTRACT

Generally, mammalian cells and living tissues can be cryopreserved in a frozen state at very low temperatures over a long storage term. The survival rate of cell suspensions is often acceptable however, living tissues suffer a variety of injuries. In this paper, it was demonstrated that the addition of polyphenols extracted from green tea to conventional cell culture medium and tissue compatible liquid, can control cell proliferation and also preserve tissues for several months at ordinary room temperature, including such tissues as blood vessels, cartilage, islet cells and corneas. This protocol allows a non-frozen living tissue bank to be established using the preservation fluid described.