Development of Electro‐Conductive Composite Bioinks for Electrohydrodynamic Bioprinting with Microscale Resolution

Abstract

Bioprinting has attracted extensive attention in the field of tissue engineering due to its unique capability in constructing biomimetic tissue constructs in a highly controlled manner. However, it is still challenging to reproduce the physical and structural properties of native electroactive tissues due to the poor electroconductivity of current bioink systems as well as the limited printing resolution of conventional bioprinting techniques. In this work, an electro‐conductive hydrogel is prepared by introducing poly (3,4‐ethylene dioxythiophene): poly (styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) into an RGD (GGGGRGDSP)‐functionalized alginate and fibrin system (RAF), and then electrohydrodynamic (EHD)‐bioprinted to form living tissue constructs with microscale resolution. The addition of 0.1 (w/v%) PEDOT: PSS increases the electroconductivity to 1.95 ± 0.21 S m−1 and simultaneously has little effect on cell viability. Compared with pure RAF bioink, the presence of PEDOT: PSS expands the printable parameters for EHD‐bioprinting, and hydrogel filaments with the smallest feature size of 48.91 ± 3.44 µm can be obtained by further optimizing process parameters. Furthermore, the EHD‐bioprinted electro‐conductive living tissue constructs with improved resolution show good viability (>85%). The synergy of the advanced electro‐conductive hydrogel and EHD‐bioprinting presented here may provide a promising approach for engineering electro‐conductive and cell‐laden constructs for electroactive tissue engineering.

Advancements of 3D bioprinting in regenerative medicine: Exploring cell sources for organ fabrication

“…Novel bioprinting techniques, such as acoustic bioprinting [ [57] , [58] , [59] ], magnetic bioprinting [ [60] , [61] , [62] ], electrohydrodynamic bioprinting [ 63 , 64 ], and other innovative approaches, are emerging to address the constraints of conventional methods and open up new possibilities in the creation of complex tissue. A significant focus of these advancements is the integration of precise control mechanisms to improve cell viability and functionality when fabricating intricate tissue architectures.…”