Abstract

Bladder acellular matrix has promising applications in urological and other reconstructive surgery as it represents a naturally compliant, non-immunogenic and highly tissue-integrative material. As the bladder fills and distends, the loosely-coiled bundles of collagen fibres in the wall become extended and orientate parallel to the lumen, resulting in a physical thinning of the muscular wall. This accommodating property can be exploited to achieve complete decellularisation of the full-thickness bladder wall by immersing the distended bladder through a series of hypotonic buffers, detergents and nucleases, but the process is empirical, idiosyncratic and does not lend itself to manufacturing scale up. In this study we have taken a mechanical engineering approach to determine the relationship between porcine bladder size and capacity, to define the biaxial deformation state of the tissue during decellularisation and to apply these principles to the design and testing of a scalable novel laser-printed flat-bed apparatus in order to achieve reproducible and full-thickness bladder tissue decellularisation. We demonstrate how the procedure can be applied reproducibly to fresh, frozen or twice-frozen bladders to render cm2 patches of DNA-free acellular matrix suitable for surgical applications.

Highlights

  • The urinary bladder is a highly compliant organ with primary function relating to the cyclical storage and expelling of urine

  • This dynamic feature is reliant on the composition and organisation of major components of the bladder wall, the detrusor smooth muscle and the sub-urothelial lamina propria [1]

  • The extracellular matrix of the bladder wall is composed primarily of collagen types I and III, with the latter conferring the majority of the bladder compliance as a result of its organisation as loosely coiled bundles in the lamina propria

Read more

Summary

Introduction

The urinary bladder is a highly compliant organ with primary function relating to the cyclical storage and expelling of urine. This dynamic feature is reliant on the composition and organisation of major components of the bladder wall, the detrusor smooth muscle and the sub-urothelial lamina propria [1]. The network of collagen type III fibres has been shown to change significantly in morphology as the bladder changes in size: un-distended, the fibres are loose and do not exhibit a specific orientation, but as the bladder fills and distends, the fibres form distinct and tight coils in an orientation parallel to that of the overlying uro-epithelium. When the bladder is fully accommodated, all collagen fibres are elongated and aligned parallel to the surface of the lumen; this point corresponds to the transition point on the stress–strain curve of the tissue [2, 3]

Objectives
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Full Text
Paper version not known

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call