Strategies for tissue and organ decellularization

Decellularized tissues have been successfully used in a variety of tissue engineering/regenerative medicine applications, and more recently decellularized organs have been utilized in the first stages of organ engineering. The protocols used to decellularize simple tissues versus intact organs differ greatly. Herein, the most commonly used decellularization methods for both surgical mesh materials and whole organs are described, with consideration given to how these different processes affect the extracellular matrix and the host response to the scaffold.