Trichinella britovi cryopreservation trial

• Forschungsstelle: BLV
• Projektnummer: 1.25.04

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

The Swiss National Reference Laboratory for Trichinellosis offers a trial on the cryopreservation of Trichinella britovi larvae.
Several studies performed in the late 1980s showed a partial utility of cryopreservation of larvae from different Trichinella spp. (1,2,3) However, those studies primarily focused on the viability and infectivity of the preserved larvae. In contrast, we propose here a different approach: cryopreserving larvae to be used as positive controls for the artificial digestion in proficiency testing. Currently, reference strains of Trichinella spp. are maintained by mice passage at the NRL, and fresh muscle larvae are used to prepare the samples for proficiency tests that are offered twice a year to Swiss laboratories. Alternative conservation methods will help reduce and refine the use of laboratory animals.
A previous small-scale pilot study performed at the NRL showed that the muscle larvae of T. britovi recovered after digestion did not survive freezing at -150°C and were destroyed during a second artificial digestion. The aim of the current evaluation is to test the suitability of different cryopreservation protocols of Trichinella britovi larvae to be used in the samples for the future proficiency tests in Switzerland.

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