Several compounds in embryo cryopreservation solutions are a source of concern:products of animal origin because of the sanitary risks, and the permeating cryoprotectantsbecause of their potential mutagenic effect. Removing or substituting these compounds withchemically defined products might improve embryo cryopreservation technics.Conception and use of cryopreservation protocols are often empirical. This empiricismleads to many variations between the studies which make a comparison between results allthe more difficult. In our study, two complementary approaches were associated:• The first approach (physical) consisted of using the differential scanning calorimetry tostandardize the comparison between different slow-freezing solutions. So, thethermodynamic properties of solutions containing a potential substitute were characterizedand compared to those obtained with solutions containing reference products (fetal calfserum and bovine serum albumin) ;• The second approach (biological) consisted of using freezing of in vivo-produced rabbitembryos or freezing of in vitro-produced bovine embryos in order to evaluate survival
