Recent Advances in Bioink Design for 3D Bioprinting of Tissues and Organs

Abstract

There is a growing demand for alternative fabrication approaches to develop tissues and organs as conventional techniques are not capable of fabricating constructs with required structural, mechanical, and biological complexity. 3D bioprinting offers great potential to fabricate highly complex constructs with precise control of structure, mechanics, and biological matter [i.e., cells and extracellular matrix (ECM) components]. 3D bioprinting is an additive manufacturing approach that utilizes a “bioink” to fabricate devices and scaffolds in a layer-by-layer manner. 3D bioprinting allows printing of a cell suspension into a tissue construct with or without a scaffold support. The most common bioinks are cell-laden hydrogels, decellulerized ECM-based solutions, and cell suspensions. In this mini review, a brief description and comparison of the bioprinting methods, including extrusion-based, droplet-based, and laser-based bioprinting, with particular focus on bioink design requirements are presented. We also present the current state of the art in bioink design including the challenges and future directions.

Biotechnology Challenges to In Vitro Maturation of Hepatic Stem Cells

“…138,140,141 However, the low resolution of available bioprinters and methods for bioprinting the vasculature (such as sacrificial hydrogel) make it impossible to print hepatic tissue with an integrated and perfusable vascular network with complex branching in a range of diameters from large vessels to capillaries. 142,143 The same holds true for the periportal to pericentral zonal distrubition. 142,143 The technology to transcend these challenges might be years away, but the potential of these biofabrication techniques is clear and compelling when considering whole-liver bioengineering.…”

“…142,143 The same holds true for the periportal to pericentral zonal distrubition. 142,143 The technology to transcend these challenges might be years away, but the potential of these biofabrication techniques is clear and compelling when considering whole-liver bioengineering. They allow not only the generation of organs on demand, but also a more exact and rapid 3D recreation of hepatic tissue with all of its refinements, and are only limited by our knowledge of what and where to print.…”

Advances in three‐dimensional bioprinting of bone: Progress and challenges

“…Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is an example of extrusion‐based printing used for synthetic thermoplastics and their composites. The technique is unsuitable for bioprinting as it involves melting thermoplastics at very high temperatures (Ji & Guvendiren, ). Therefore, a slightly modified FDM‐based printer has been developed by our group at the University of Bridgeport (Halim et al, ).…”

“…Inspite of the different printing methods used, there is a certain set of characteristics that need to be achieved in terms of both material (printability, flowability, and degradability) as well as biological (cytocompatibility and differentiation) requirements for appropriate ink preparation (Ji & Guvendiren, ). Different biocompatible materials ranging from naturally derived to chemically synthesized polymers, ceramics, bioactive glasses, and their modified derivatives are being extensively investigated as potential bioinks for bone.…”

Recent advances in three‐dimensional bioprinting of stem cells

“…To address this, dECM would be a suitable bioink as it is an excellent candidate for providing cells with the signals required to induce and maintain differentiation into tissue‐specific lineages (Agmon & Christman, ). Decellularized tissue or ECM‐based bioink formulations are developing fields due to their ease of printability and their inherent bioactivity (Ji & Guvendiren, ). dECM from cartilage (Pati et al, ), fat (Pati et al, ), heart (Das & Jang, ), skin (Ahn et al, ), and liver (Lee et al, ) has already been used for 3D bioprinting.…”