Evaluation of Small Intestine Grafts Decellularization Methods for Corneal Tissue Engineering Ximenes Oliveira, Ana Celeste Garzón Bello, Ingrid Johanna Ionescu , Ana María Andreea Carriel Araya, Víctor Cruz Cardona, Juan de la González Andrades, Miguel Pérez, María del Mar Alaminos Mingorance, Miguel Campos Muñoz, Antonio Jesús Extracellular-matrix Stroma substitute Scaffold material Collagen-fibers Cross-linking Submucosa Fibrin Organ Reconstruction Regeneration Advances in the development of cornea substitutes by tissue engineering techniques have focused on the use of decellularized tissue scaffolds. In this work, we evaluated different chemical and physical decellularization methods on small intestine tissues to determine the most appropriate decellularization protocols for corneal applications. Our results revealed that the most efficient decellularization agents were the SDS and triton X-100 detergents, which were able to efficiently remove most cell nuclei and residual DNA. Histological and histochemical analyses revealed that collagen fibers were preserved upon decellularization with triton X-100, NaCl and sonication, whereas reticular fibers were properly preserved by decellularization with UV exposure. Extracellular matrix glycoproteins were preserved after decellularization with SDS, triton X-100 and sonication, whereas proteoglycans were not affected by any of the decellularization protocols. Tissue transparency was significantly higher than control non-decellularized tissues for all protocols, although the best light transmittance results were found in tissues decellularized with SDS and triton X-100. In conclusion, our results suggest that decellularized intestinal grafts could be used as biological scaffolds for cornea tissue engineering. Decellularization with triton X-100 was able to efficiently remove all cells from the tissues while preserving tissue structure and most fibrillar and non-fibrillar extracellular matrix components, suggesting that this specific decellularization agent could be safely used for efficient decellularization of SI tissues for cornea TE applications. 2014-03-10T10:52:57Z 2014-03-10T10:52:57Z 2013 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Oliveira, A.C.; et al. Evaluation of Small Intestine Grafts Decellularization Methods for Corneal Tissue Engineering. Plos One, 8(6): e66538 (2013). [doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0066538] 1932-6203 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0066538 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/30758 10.1371/journal.pone.0066538 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Public Library of Science (PLOS)