ALLOGENEIC AND XENOGENEIC TRANSPLANTATION OF CRYOPRESERVED OVARIAN TISSUE TO ATHYMIC MICE

Cryopreserved ovarian tissue has major applications for female oncolog y patients and for the development of genome resource banks. The objec tive of the present study was to develop a bioassay of cryopreserved o varian tissue function after allogeneic and xenogeneic transplantation to ovariectomized athymic nude (nu/nu) Balb/C mice. Transplant functi on was assessed by examination of vaginal smears, number of live birth s, and posttransplant histology. Animals were sham operated (group I; n = 4) or ovariectomized (group II; n = 5) or were given transplants o f either fresh (group III; n = 3) or cryopreserved (group IV; n = 4) I nstitute of Cancer Research-strain mouse ovarian tissue or cryopreserv ed sheep ovarian tissue (group V; n = 7). Vaginal smears were examined 5-7 times per week; the number of days between visualizations of epit helial cells in smears was 4.3 +/- 0.6 for group I, 8.6 +/- 3.8 for gr oup II, 3.4 +/- 0.4 for group III, 3.3 +/- 0.5 for group IV, and 4.6 /- 0.6 for group V Epithelial cells were seen for 1.2-1.7 consecutive days; this value was significantly different between groups III and V. Live births were recorded from 3 of 4 animals from group I, 0 of 5 an imals from group II, 2 of 3 animals from group III, and 1 of 4 animals from group IV. In vivo function and longterm survival of cryopreserve d ovarian tissue after allogeneic or xenogeneic transplant were confir med by the examination of vaginal cytology, and offspring were derived from allografts.