How do animals survive extreme temperature amplitudes? The role of Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents

Abstract

Recent findings have reported the reason why some living beings are able to withstand the huge thermal amplitudes between winter and summer in their natural habitats. They are able to produce metabolites decreasing deeply the crystallization temperature of water, avoiding cell disrupture due to the presence of ice crystals and overcoming osmotic effects. In vitro, the possibility to cool living cells and tissues to cryogenic temperatures in the absence of ice can be achieved through a vitrification process. Vitrification has been suggested as an alternative approach to cryopreservation and could hereafter follow an interesting biomimetic perspective. The metabolites produced by these animals are mostly sugars, organic acids, choline derivatives, or urea. When combined at a particular composition, these compounds form a new liquid phase which has been defined as Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NADES). In this review, we relate the findings of different areas of knowledge from evolutive biology, cryobiology, and thermodynamics and give a perspective to the potential of NADES in the development of new cryoprotective agents.