Freeze-Dried Bovine Bone as Xenogenic Scaffold: Does Decellularization Lower Its Antigenic Potential?

Deproteinized Bovine Bone Mineral (DBBM) has been widely used as tissue engineering scaffold, because of its not antigenic potential, although non-resorbable. Freeze-Dried Bovine Bone (FDBB) scaffold was developed to overcome the limitations of DBBM but it’s still suspected to have antigenic potential. Therefore, to overcome the issues of antigenic potential, decellularization of FDBB was carried out (dc-FDBB). Objective: To analyze antigenic potential of FDBB scaffold with process decellularization. FDBB and dc-FDBB scaffolds compared to DBBM scaffold as gold standard. Ten samples for each group of scaffold FDBB, dc-FDBB, and DBBM. The groups were observed for residual osteoblasts and osteocytes with HE staining using a light microscope with 40 x and 400 x magnification. DNA concentration analysis was carried out on the three types of scaffolds using a spectrophotometer. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS version 25. Data were statistically analyzed using ANOVA and Post Hoc Games-Howell tests. There were degradation of osteocytes without nucleus and satisfactory condition of extracellular matrix geometrical structure in the FDBB scaffold. There were no osteoblasts and osteocytes with damaged extracellular matrix geometrical structures were seen in the dc-FDBB scaffold. There were no osteoblasts and osteocytes with satisfactory condition of extracellular matrix geometrical structure in the DBBM scaffold. Mean values of DNA concentration: FDBB, dc-FDBB, and DBBM were of (19.75 ng/μL ± 4.80), (16.84 ng/μL ± 6.55), and (8.72 ng/μL ± 0.65) respectively. Comparative p value FDBB and dc-FDBB scaffolds were 0,509 (p>0,05), there were no statistically significant difference between FDBB and dc-FDBB scaffolds.