ABSTRACT
Aiming at assessing the cryopreservation potential of Litopenaeus vannamei sperm cells, 74 spermatophores were manually extracted from the sexually mature individuals. After the toxicity test to define the cryoprotectant concentration, suspensions of spermatic cells were cryopreserved in the groups in freezing solutions comprising different cryoprotectants such as dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and ethylene glycol (EG) at 10% concentration. Each treatment was divided in subgroups for storage in liquid nitrogen during 0, 30, 60 and 90 days, in triplicate. After thawing at 25ºC for 40 seconds, cell viability in the suspensions was analyzed under the microscope in eosin-nigrosin stain and flow cytometry. There were no significant differences between the cryoprotectants used. For all the treatments, lower and higher mortalities occurred in the 0 and 90 days, respectively. By applying the eosin-nigrosin technique, lower and higher mortalities were 23.17 and 82.11% for DMSO and 29.94 and 83.72% for EG, while the flow cytometry registered mortalities of 2.42 and 55.13% for DMSO and 0.90 and 55.56% for EG. The Spearman correlation coefficient indicated a positive correlation (R=0.91) between the two techniques used. It was concluded that there was a decrease in cell viability within a longer cryopreservation time.