Kosuke KURODA1, Yui KATO1, Takeru ISHIZAKI1, Tetsuo KOMORI1, Kojiro ISHIBASHI1, Kenji TAKAHASHI1, Kazuaki NINOMIYA1, Takuya UTO1, Eishu HIRATA1
1Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan
The solvent for life science is water because lives are composed of much amount of water. On the other hand, organic solvents are often used academically and industrially, and the most often-used applications of organic solvents are drug solvents and cryoprotectants for cells. The representative organic solvent, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), is widely used as a solvent in such cases due its low toxicity among organic solvents. However, it is surely toxic and affects cell behaviours even at 0.1 wt%. Here, we propose a zwitterionic liquid (ZIL), a zwitterion-type ionic liquid, as a new alternative to DMSO. ZIL is not cell permeable, less toxic to cells and tissues, and has great potential as a vehicle for various hydrophobic drugs. Notably, ZIL can serve as a solvent for stock solutions of platinating agents, whose anticancer effects are completely abolished by dissolution in DMSO. Furthermore, ZIL possesses suitable affinity to the plasma membrane and acts as a cryoprotectant. The optimised ZIL solutions have better cryoprotecting effect compared to a commercial cryoprotectant. Cells, cell aggregates (called spheroid and used for regenerative medicine), and cell tissues were well cryopreserved. Our results suggest that ZIL is a potent, multifunctional and biocompatible solvent that compensates for many shortcomings of DMSO.
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