Investigating the Decellularization of Plant Tissues Using at-home Kitchen Facilities During COVID

Abstract

To engineer transplants, donor tissues are decellularized to create acellular scaffolds for the patients’ own cells to be seeded into. There is a need for alternative donor sources because the demand for tissue transplants exceeds the availability of human donors. Plants may offer a solution because of their accessibility, cellulose base, biocompatibility, natural vascularization, and variety of structures and properties available. In this paper, decellularization processes and procedures for plants are presented; and the decellularization of onion epithelial skins was performed using the detergent and detergent-free procedures modified to use at-home kitchen facilities because of school lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of decellularization were histologically analyzed using methylene blue, iodine, and pen ink. Promising results of cells with some debris, a mostly intact extracellular matrix (ECM), and an absence of nuclei, were obtained, which speak to the accessibility of plant scaffolds as a potential donor source.