Pressurized carbon dioxide combined with aqueous ethanol as cosolvent induces efficient delipidation of porcine retina for their use as bioscaffolds

Abstract

Retina damage results in both health and social problems. To treat retina damage, extracellular matrix technology has gained interest in the scientist community. Bioscaffolds production is based in the use of a `cleaned` tissue, free of undesired cellular components, for further recellularization using healthy cells. Removal of lipids is an important step to improve both de- and recellularization. This work shows, for the first time, the efficiency of pressurized carbon dioxide (CO2) fluids for the delipidation of porcine retina tissue. Pressurized CO2-EtOH-H2O (0.87 XCO2) at 300 bar and 37 °C for 1 h completely removed the 28 lipid species found in untreated retina (classified as phosphatidylcholines, phosphatidylethanolamines and sphingomyelins). When the ethanolic mixture was replaced by limonene at same conditions, lipid content decreased by more than a 50%, indicating reasonably good solubility of retina lipids in pressurized CO2-limonene; however, no delipidation was observed using neat supercritical CO2. In conclusion, pressurize CO2 technologies can be applied for delipidation of retina. Whether the resulting bioscaffold can be recellularized and used in transplantation remain to be shown.