Region-specific brain decellularized extracellular matrix promotes cell recovery in an in vitro model of stroke

Brain decellularized extracellular matrix (ECM) can be an attractive scaffold capable of mimicking the native ecosystem of the central nervous system tissue. We studied the in vitro response of neural cultures exposed to region-specific brain decellularized ECM scaffolds from three distinct neuroanatomical sections: cortex, cerebellum and remaining areas. First, each brain region was evaluated with the isotropic fractionator method to understand the cellular composition of the different cerebral areas. Second, the cerebral regions were subjected to the decellularization process and their respective characterization using molecular, histological, and ultrastructural techniques. Third, the levels of neurotrophic factors in the decellularized brain scaffold were analyzed. Fourth, we studied the region-specific brain decellularized ECM as a mimetic platform for the maturation of PC12 cells, as a unidirectional model of differentiation. Finally, in vitro studies were carried out to evaluate the cell recovery capacity of brain decellularized ECM under stroke-mimetic conditions. Our results show that region-specific brain decellularized ECM can serve as a biomimetic scaffold capable of promoting the growth of neural lineage cells and, in addition, it possesses a combination of structural and biochemical signals (e.g., neurotrophic factors) that are capable of inducing cell phenotypic changes and promote viability and cell recovery in a stroke/ischemia model in vitro.