Protocol to use de-epithelialized porcine urinary bladder as a tissue scaffold for propagation of pancreatic cells

Ex vivo organ culture can be a useful alternative to in vivo models, which can be time-, labor-, and cost-intensive. Here we describe a step-by-step protocol to use de-epithelialized porcine urinary bladders as scaffolds in air-liquid interface in vitro culture systems for a variety of pluripotent stem-cell-derived and patient-derived pancreatic cells and organoids. The scaffold can trigger cell maturation and enable cell-cell interaction and invasion capacity studies. However, this model is limited by the lack of functional vasculature. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Melzer et al. (2022),1 Breunig et al. (2021),2 and Breunig et al. (2021).3.