Decellularization techniques: unveiling the blueprint for tracheal tissue engineering

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Certain congenital or acquired diseases and defects such as tracheo-oesophageal fistula, tracheomalacia, tracheal stenosis, airway ischemia, infections, and tumours can cause damage to the trachea. Treatments available do not offer any permanent solutions. Moreover, long-segment defects in the trachea have no available surgical treatments. Tissue engineering has gained popularity in current regenerative medicine as a promising approach to bridge this gap. Among the various tissue engineering techniques, decellularization is a widely used approach that removes the cellular and nuclear contents from the tissue while preserving the native extracellular matrix components. The decellularized scaffolds exhibit significantly lower immunogenicity and retain the essential biomechanical and proangiogenic properties of native tissue, creating a foundation for trachea regeneration. The present review provides an overview of trachea decellularization advancements, exploring how recellularization approaches can be optimized by using various stem cells and tissue-specific cells to restore the scaffold's structure and function. We examine critical factors such as mechanical properties, revascularization, and immunogenicity involved in the transplantation of tissue-engineered grafts.

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.