Use of supercritical CO2 in soft tissue decellularization

Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO(2)) is being used as an alternative approach to the traditional methods for the decellularization of tissues. This chapter describes the use of scCO(2) for the decellularization of optic nerve, myocardium, and cornea tissues. The main goal of this method is to burst the cells with high-pressure, remove them from the tissues and to maintain the extracellular matrix structure of the native tissues. For this purpose, several scCO(2)-assisted decellularization protocols were developed and optimized according to the requirements of these tissues. Efficiencies of the utilized decellularization protocols were determined via histological and morphological analysis. The decrease in the DNA content and the preserved glycosaminoglycan (GAG) amounts were also used as assessment parameters.