how come we can’t scaffold animal hearts and use them for organ transplants?

Question

is there just something fundamentally different about animal hearts?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Now, I’m not entirely sure but I think the main reason is that organs we typically do that with (like a heart valve or a trachea) are usually rich in connective tissue and have a dense collagen structure. When you acellularize these organs there will be a good mesh left made up of organic material which is similar between individuals and, unlike cellular tissue, does not display molecules like the MHC which trigger an immune response in graft recipients. The myocardium, i.e. the bulk of the heart, is mostly made up of muscle cells and specialized muscle cells and I doubt you could acellularize the heart while maintaining its structure to a satisfactory degree. At least I think that describes some of the major obstacles which may make a project like that less probable to succeed than some other similar grafts.