Plant Tissues as 3D Natural Scaffolds for Adipose, Bone and Tendon Tissue Regeneration.

Nicola Contessi Negrini,Silvia Farè,Nadia Toffoletto,Lina Altomare

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2020.00723

Abstract

Decellularized tissues are a valid alternative as tissue engineering scaffolds, thanks to the three-dimensional structure that mimics native tissues to be regenerated and the biomimetic microenvironment for cells and tissues growth. Despite decellularized animal tissues have long been used, plant tissue decellularized scaffolds might overcome availability issues, high costs and ethical concerns related to the use of animal sources. The wide range of features covered by different plants offers a unique opportunity for the development of tissue-specific scaffolds, depending on the morphological, physical and mechanical peculiarities of each plant. Herein, three different plant tissues (i.e., apple, carrot, and celery) were decellularized and, according to their peculiar properties (i.e., porosity, mechanical properties), addressed to regeneration of adipose tissue, bone tissue and tendons, respectively. Decellularized apple, carrot and celery maintained their porous structure, with pores ranging from 70 to 420 μm, depending on the plant source, and were stable in PBS at 37°C up to 7 weeks. Different mechanical properties (i.e., Eapple = 4 kPa, Ecarrot = 43 kPa, Ecelery = 590 kPa) were measured and no indirect cytotoxic effects were demonstrated in vitro after plants decellularization. After coating with poly-L-lysine, apples supported 3T3-L1 preadipocytes adhesion, proliferation and adipogenic differentiation; carrots supported MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblasts adhesion, proliferation and osteogenic differentiation; celery supported L929 cells adhesion, proliferation and guided anisotropic cells orientation. The versatile features of decellularized plant tissues and their potential for the regeneration of different tissues are proved in this work.

Highlights

Tissue engineering requires an accurate design of engineered biomaterials able to sustain the regeneration of pathological/missing tissues
We identified three different plant tissues that are characterized by diverse internal architectures
All the considered plant tissues underwent a loss of pigmentation after the decellularization treatment (Figure 2Ai vs. Figure 2Aii), noticeable in carrot samples due to the orange-colored appearance of the native tissue

Summary

Introduction

Tissue engineering requires an accurate design of engineered biomaterials able to sustain the regeneration of pathological/missing tissues Both synthetic and natural-derived biomaterials have been proposed and are still under investigation to achieve the appropriate morphological, physical, mechanical and biological properties to suit the specific requirements for the regeneration of different target human tissues. Plant Tissues 3D Scaffolds superior biological response compared to synthetic scaffolds, a good biocompatibility and ecological safety (Alaribe et al, 2016) In both cases, the polymeric materials must be processed to fabricate scaffolds with the appropriate properties and, despite advanced fabrication technologies have been developed to process polymers, reproducing the correct microarchitecture of the tissues to be regenerated is still challenging (Jammalamadaka and Tappa, 2018). Compared to allogeneic and xenogeneic transplant, decellularized structures have lower immunogenic response in the host after implantation, as immunogenicity is associated to intracellular components that are removed by the decellularization process

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion