(ORDO NEWS) — The new composition was successfully tested on cell cultures and experimental mice, protecting them from extreme cold.
Whether you’re working, relaxing, or traveling in extreme cold, it’s not that hard to get frostbite. With a deep drop in temperature, oxygen supply to tissues is disrupted, and in especially severe cases, water freezes in them. Massive cell death and necrosis occurs, which can cause irreversible damage to the body.
However, these dangerous effects can be significantly reduced with the help of a special “frostbite cream” created by scientists from the Indian Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB). Its recipe and test results are described in an article published in the ACS journal Applied Biomaterials .
Thinking about such a cream, biochemist Munia Ganguli and her colleagues thought about cryoprotectants , which are widely used in laboratory practice to prevent the formation of ice in live cultures. Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is able to penetrate into cells and prevents the freezing of water inside them. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) works in the intercellular space, protecting cell membranes from ice.
By conducting experiments with cell cultures “in vitro”, scientists have determined the optimal amount of DMSO and PVA, which most significantly reduces their mortality at temperatures below zero. Thus, the basis of the formulation was found: 2% DMSO and 1.6 mg / ml PVA – with a cell survival of about 80 percent.
A more careful analysis showed that both the state of the cells and division after severe cold stress remained normal if they were treated with this combination. The scientists named it SynAFP.
Next, Ganguly and her co-authors mixed SynAFP with a regular Aloe Vera cream and moved on to experiments on mice, applying it 15 minutes before placing the animals in the cold. The remedy worked here too, significantly reducing the number and size of frostbite, tissue damage, and inflammation, compared to mice that did not receive the new cream.
Unfortunately, with earlier application of the cream – half an hour before exposure to cold – these effects were almost imperceptible. But experiments have shown that it is harmless to smear it once again; in animals, such a procedure did not cause any visible side effects. However, the efficacy and safety of SynAFP in humans has yet to be confirmed.
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