An overview of animal tissue decellularization techniques and clinical applications

Abstract

There is a persistent an urgent need to solve tissue and organ donor shortage issues. Decellularized tissues represent a promising alternative to other biologic and synthetic treatments that have been developed, since they aim to retain native tissue characteristics that would help in the regenerative processes such as prolifera-tion, cellular adhesion, and the presence of growth factors, while minimizing the chances of an unwanted host immune response. In the present review, we describe the most common methodologies for decellularization pro-cesses, as well as the clinical applications of these biomaterials.