Tissue Preservation and Access: Modern Innovation in Biobanking Moving Forwards a Personalized Treatment

Tissue substitution and graft transplantation are currently the best treatment options for patients suffering from severe heart diseases. However, the limited availability of donors and the restricted durability of tissues applied in cardiovascular treatments result in a constraint on applicability and a suboptimal therapeutic approach that is still not fully resolved. There are multiple ways to preserve heart tissue grafts, and the choice of method is solely dependent upon the nature and complexity of the tissue and the length of storage. The conventional cold storage method provides the base to nearly all of the preservation protocols for short- and long-term storage. Short-term storage methods frequently rely on designing preserving solutions to protect the graft against warm and cold ischemia at the temperature above freezing point. As ice-nucleation is the major notorious phenomenon during graft preservation, the modern era of research is focusing on developing ice-free preservation techniques, termed vitrification. However, despite the promising outcomes of vitrification, there are several recognized hurdles required to be overcome to build a biobank of heart grafts for an extended period of time. Besides tissue deterioration due to extreme cold temperature, there is another extreme phenomenon of tissue rejection mainly caused by the presence of cellular antigens. The modern approach of decellularization has the potential to minimize the chances of tissue rejection by removing the cells and providing a structural support and sustained biochemical signal via keeping the extracellular matrix of the graft intact. In conclusion, both nano-warming and decellularization are the leading approaches that have great potential to store the graft tissue in its optimal form via keeping its viability safe for a longer time and extending its applicability. This review article outlines a variety of approaches for the preservation and bioengineering of tissue to fulfill the need for the availability of on-shelf long-lasting grafts both in clinical and laboratory setups.