Tissue decellularization

A method of producing a bioprosthetic tissue consisting essentially of the of the steps of:

• i) washing a starting tissue selected from the group consisting of a heart valve, tendon, ligament, artery, vein, diaphragm, pericardium, fascia, dura mater and tympanic membrane with a bioburden reducing agent so that said starting tissue is disinfected,
• ii) subsequent to step (i), contacting said disinfected tissue with a hypotonic solution so that lysis of cells of said disinfected tissue is effected,
• iii) incubating the hypotonic solution-treated tissue resulting from step (ii) with at least one enzyme, wherein said at least one enzyme consists of at least one nuclease, so that nucleic acid associated with said cells lysed as a result of step (ii) is degraded, and
• iv) sterilizing the nuclease-treated tissue resulting from step (iii).