A novel fibrin-based artificial ovary prototype resembling human ovarian tissue in terms of architecture and rigidity

Purpose The aim of this study is to optimize fibrin matrix composition in order to mimic human ovarian tissue architecture for human ovarian follicle encapsulation and grafting. Methods Ultrastructure of fresh human ovarian cortex in age-related women ( n = 3) and different fibrin formulations (F12.5/T1, F30/T50, F50/T50, F75/T75), rheology of fibrin matrices and histology of isolated and encapsulated human ovarian follicles in these matrices. Results Fresh human ovarian cortex showed a highly fibrous and structurally inhomogeneous architecture in three age-related patients, but the mean ± SD of fiber thickness (61.3 to 72.4 nm) was comparable between patients. When the fiber thickness of four different fibrin formulations was compared with human ovarian cortex, F50/T50 and F75/T75 showed similar fiber diameters to native tissue, while F12.5/T1 was significantly different ( p value