Extracellular Matrix from Whole Porcine Heart Decellularization for Cardiac Tissue Engineering

Decellularization of whole porcine hearts followed by recellularization with fully differentiated cells made from patient-specific human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) may provide the ultimate solution for patients with heart failure. Decellularization is the process of completely disrupting all cells and removing the cellular components (e.g., antigenic proteins, lipids, DNA) from organic tissue, leaving only the extracellular matrix (ECM). The decellularization of porcine hearts can be accomplished in 24 h and results in 98% DNA removal with only 6 h of detergent exposure. Automatically controlling the pressure during decellularization reduces the detergent exposure time while still completely removing immunogenic cell debris.