Morphological studies of tissues stabilized by glutaraldehyde and tannic acid

Despite the disadvantages of glutaraldehyde (GA)-stabilization of tissues, it is the method most often used for xenogeneic tissues preparation. Nowadays, partial elimination of drawbacks of this method is achieved by using GA in the mixture with other crosslinking reagents, which completes the stabilization effects and acts synergistically. The aim of this work was to determine microstructure and nanostructure of porcine pericardium stabilized by GA and tannic acid (TA). The microstructure was examined by optical microscopy and the nanostructure by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Different results on the level of micro- and nanostructure were observed. No essential changes in the tissue morphology after crosslinking with GA and TA were observed under optical microscope, but significant morphological differences were revealed in AFM studies.