3D fabrication of biomaterial constructs for tissue engineering

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The capability and protocol of a lab-made 3D bioprinter were tested. Cellulose-based materials have been shown to have great potential for biomedical applications in the construction of extracellular matrix-mimicking scaffolds owing to their intrinsic characteristics, such as biocompatibility and tunable 3D architecture. Herein the nanocellulose was processed from wood-based cellulose to generate nano-fibers with 100nm in length and 5nm in diameter. Using the 3D bioprinter, nanocellulose scaffolds were successfully printed. Fibroblast 3T3 cells were cultured with the printed nanocellulose scaffolds, and cells showed good adhesion and proliferation behavior.Gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) has been widely used as scaffold material for 3D bioprinting. However, one of the obstacles in using GelMA for 3D bioprinting is the photo-crosslinking speed. Without fast photo-crosslinking speed, GelMA cannot form structures with desired resolution during 3D bioprinting. Key to solve this challenge is to increase the speed of GelMA bio-ink photo-crosslinking reactions. It is shown that instead of methacrylation of gelatin, its modification with the acrylate functional group can demonstrate a higher photo-crosslinking rate. We demonstrated that the modification efficiency increased to 90% with 4:1 reagent ratio, compared to 67% for the degree of GelMA modification. The synthesized GelAc was then examined with human umbilical vein endothelial cells, which showed tubular network formation after 5 days culture, demonstrating good biocompatibility of GelAc hydrogel.