Preparation of acellular arteries by irradiation

Fujisato, Toshiya*; Kikuchi, Masahiro; Sakashita, Tetsuya; Funayama, Tomoo; Kobayashi, Yasuhiko; Funamoto, Seiichi*; Kimura, Tsuyoshi*; Kishida, Akio*; Yamaoka, Tetsuji*

Synthetic materials, such as ePTFE or Dacron are not suitable for reconstructing the small-diameter arteries. In contrast, tissue engineering (TE) graft has been attracting great attention recently. One of the promising approaches of TE grafts is using acellular tissues. The acellular scaffold may have the same structure and characteristics as the natural tissue and can be replaced with the host tissues. In this study, we prepared the acellular scaffold using irradiation, which is expected to induce the apoptosis of the cells.