Effect of Hypothermic Preservation on Biological Tissues in Physiological Solution

摘要

Preservation of porcine aortic tissue at 4℃ in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) was monitored for a period of 10 days. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) was used to indirectly quantify the permeation of glucose, with the objective of assessing the structural integrity of the tissue. The average permeability rate for the first day was calculated to be (2.32 ± 0.46) × 10~(-5) cm/s. After 10 days of storage the average permeability rate was found to be (7.37 ± 0.41) × 10~(-5) cm/s --nearly a 200% increase. A z-test performed on the permeability rate results verified that after 4 days of storage the permeability rate had significantly changed (p<0.05). Histology was used to validate the OCT results by quantifying changes in pore area. An increase in pore size paralleled the increase in permeability rate over the 10 day storage period. A parallel experiment demonstrated that increasing pore size was not accompanied by release of protein from the tissue over the storage period. The results suggest that tissues can maintain their structural stability for at least three days at 4℃ in PBS.