Decellularization of plant and animal tissues
Decellularization is the process by which you remove the cellular material from a piece of tissue and leave the connective tissue behind. For plants
this means leaving cellulose and lignin behind, for animals collagen, fibronectin and a few others. For animal tissues especially, some of the
biochemical markers for "this type of cell grows here" are also saved on the scaffold. The connective tissue, fi handled carefully, retains the shape
of the tissue and can be re seeded with new cells to grow a new piece of tissue. Famously this technique was used to remove the cells from a rat
heart, which was then re seeded and eventually began to beat.
Originally for the rat thing, they just used a technique called coronary retrograde profusion perfusion where they force liquid through the heart in
the opposit direction it normally goes. The liquid in this case was a simple SDS solution. Eventually the technique was improved, more and different
washes were added.
But this technique works on any sort of tissue. I've done it with a variety of fruits and vegetables, a pig heart, some beef liver. I've seen it done
to bone, skin, brain, lungs and more. I even saw 1 paper that did a whole body decell of a rat. Honestly the whole process is fascinating, and really
cool to watch. Every time I did it it took a few days, but using the ideal materials and equipment the process can be shortened significantly
(theoretically).
I've made videos going through the process in all of the cases I mentioned for those interested.
Pig heart
Beef liver
Strawberry, kiwi, mushroom, brocolli, apples
Of them all, my favorites were the heart and the strawberry, with broccoli and apples in at second.
The idea for the fruit actually came from a researcher at the university of Ottawa who's using decellularized fruit to grow human tissue in the shape
of an ear Pelling's TED talk
I've got a few projects I'll get to eventually that makes use of all of this. Freeze drying a piece of decellularized tissue is a great way to get
extra cellular matrix in powdered form and with the biomarkers for what sort of tissue is supped to grow on it. Could be interesting for bio printing
and such.
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