The Performance Evalution Of The Decellularized Sheep Trachea Prepared With The Modified Detergent-enzymatic Methods

The tracheal necrosis or narrowing of the lumen happens in many cases,for example,congenital malformations,tumors,injuries,infections,etc.In the situation,the treatment of the lesion is urgent.There are two main treatment methods according to the length of the lesion.When the lesion length is less than 1/2 of the total length of an adult's trachea or 1/3 of a child's trachea,trachea resection and end-to-end anastomosis is the gold standard for treatment.Thereagainst,the patients need to receive the trachea transplantation.Allogeneic transplantation tends to incur rejection reactions.In order to deal with the problem,the patients need to use immunosuppressants for a long time.Moreover,there is a great probability of graft infection and necrosis.To solve the problem,decellularization treatment came to being.The advantage of the technology is that by using it we can obtain the unmatched biocompatibility of allogeneic tissues.At the same time,the mechanical properties of the naive tissues can be maintained to the maximum extent.In the paper,our research group used the modified detergent-enzymatic method to decellularize the sheep trachea.Then we explored the effect of decellularization on tracheal structure,composition and mechanical integrity.By comparison,the optimal cycle of decellularization was obtained.ObjectiveThe effects of different cycles of DEM decellularization on the sheep tracheal structure,composition and mechanical properties were explored.Through comparison,the optimal cycle of decellularization was obtained.Methods1.Preparation of sheep decellularized trachea stent through the modified DEM.2.Evaluation of the structure and composition of the decellularized trachea stent with the assistance of pathological section staining and scanning electron microscope.3.The mechanical performance test of the decellularzed tracheal stent.4.The subcutaneous implantation of the decellularized tracheal stent.Results 1.Compared with the structure of the native trachea,six DEM cycles of decellularization basically removed the mucosal epithelium,but did not make significant damage to the tracheal submucosal tissue.At the same time,most of the cell nucleus was dissolved except few from the cartilage.2.The test of the mechanical properties revealed that the decellularized stent going through six DEM cycles showed the similar mechanical properties with that of the naive trachea.However,seven DEM cycles obviously did damage to the mechanical properties of the trachea.3.Compared with the navie trachea,the decellularized stent going through six DEM cycles exhibited much weaker rejection in the subcutaneous implantation.Conclusion Six DEM cycles could effectively reduce the immunogenicity of the sheep trachea,and the decellularized trachea obtained shared similar structure and mechanical properties with the naive trachea.And the decellularized trachea exhibited great biocompatibility.Therefore,it could be expected to be a candidate for trachea replacement for clinical use.