A comparative study of acellular nerve xenografts and allografts in repairing rat facial nerve defects

Acellular nerves are composed of a basal lamina tube, which retains sufficient bioactivity to promote axon regeneration, thereby repairing peripheral nerve gaps. However, the clinical application of acellular allografts has been restricted due to its limited availability. To investigate whether xenografts, a substitute to allograft acellular nerves in abundant supply, could efficiently promote nerve regeneration, rabbit and rat acellular nerve grafts were used to reconstruct 1 cm defects in Wistar rat facial nerves. Autologous peroneal nerve grafts served as a positive control group. A total of 12 weeks following the surgical procedure, the axon number, myelinated axon number, myelin sheath thickness, and nerve conduction velocity of the rabbit and rat‑derived acellular nerve grafts were similar, whereas the fiber diameter of the rabbit‑derived acellular xenografts decreased, as compared with those of rat‑derived acellular allografts. Autografts exerted superior effects on nerve regeneration; however, no significant difference was observed between the axon number in the autograft group, as compared with the two acellular groups. These results suggested that autografts perform better than acellular nerve grafts, and chemically extracted acellular allografts and xenografts have similar effects on the regeneration of short facial nerve defects.