Reconstruction of peripheral nervous tissue remains challenging in critical-sized defects due to the lack of Büngner bands from the proximal to the distal nerve ends. Conventional nerve guides fail to bridge the large-sized defect owing to the formation of a thin fibrin cable. Hence, in the present study, an attempt was made to reverse engineer the intricate epi-, peri-and endo-neurial tissues using Fused Deposition Modeling based 3D printing. Bovine serum albumin protein nanoflowers (NF) exhibiting Viburnum opulus 'Roseum' morphology were ingrained into 3D printed constructs without affecting its secondary structure to enhance the axonal guidance from proximal to distal ends of denuded nerve ends. Scanning electron micrographs confirmed the uniform distribution of protein NF in 3D printed constructs. The PC-12 cells cultured on protein ingrained 3D printed scaffolds demonstrated cytocompatibility, improved cell adhesion and extended neuronal projections with significantly higher intensities of NF-200 and tubulin expressions.Further suture-free fixation designed in the current 3D printed construct aids facile implantation of printed conduits to the transected nerve ends. Hence the protein ingrained 3D printed construct would be a promising substitute to treat longer peripheral nerve defects as its structural equivalence of endo-and perineurial organization along with the ingrained protein NF promote the neuronal extension towards the distal ends by minimizing axonal dispersion.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the third major cause of blindness in people aged above 60 years. It causes dysfunction of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and leads to irreversible loss...

Small-diameter arterial conduits with native physiological and biological equivalence continues to be a constant global demand posing critical challenges in fabrication. Advent of various strategies towards mimicking the structural hierarchy of a native blood vessel, often involve complex instrumentation and template-assistance with post-processing complications eventually compromising structural fidelity. In the present research, we report a template-free, facile strategy- ‘3D wet writing’ by peripheral-core differential ionic gelation to fabricate perfusable customizable constructs of any dimension, thickness and length in <5 mins. Dual-crosslinking using di-diol complexation of borax with Alginate-PVA was performed to enhance the stability of fabricated bi-layered tubular constructs (BLT). These fabricated BLTs demonstrated non-liner mechanical characteristics of native blood vessels in withstanding physiological (120/80 mmHg) hemodynamic loading conditions with cyclic strain (5.82 ± 0.88 %). The BLTs also ensured adequate longitudinal (0.176 ± 0.03 MPa) & circumferential (0.29 ± 0.012 MPa) tensile strength and burst pressure strength of 353.875± 22.69 mmHg. Hemocompatible characteristics of BLT were clearly evident with lower hemolytic index (0.21±0.03 %) and maintenance of erythrocyte structural integrity under dynamic conditions. Further, non-thrombogenic and non-inflammatory characteristics of BLTs were confirmed by in-activated platelets and monocytes under dynamic conditions. The developed wet-writing technique exhibited facile integration of layer-specific cells concurrently with the BLT fabrication. The spatial cell-specific expressions of smooth muscle (α-SMA) and endothelial (CD-31) cells in BLT were comparable to native hierarchical cellular organization with the multi-layered medial and mono-layered intimal layers. Further, ex-vivo dynamic studies on anastomotic interface between BLT and rat abdominal aorta clearly evidenced the functional efficacy of fabricated BLTs as physiologically relevant small-diameter vascular construct.

Marigold-like tyrosinase entrenched nanostructures was developed by a facile method using metal cofactor to overcome the limitations of conventional enzyme immobilization techniques. The protein-copper complex promotes hierarchical self-assembly of nanopetals...