DEVELOPMENT OF 3D BIOPRINTED CELL-LADEN TISSUE-ENGINEERED CONSTRUCTS

A. A. ALDANA; B. DOYLE; R. DILLEY; F. VALENTE

CABA

Simposio; XIII Simposio Argentino de Polímeros; 2019

In the last years, 3D cell culture models obtained by additive manufacturing techniques have gain great attention shifting the steady paradigm from conventional 2D cell culture toward these 3D microenvironments (Billiet et al., 2018; Gurski et al., 2017; Samavedi and Joy, 2017; Zhang et al., 2016). It is due to the cell behavior is different in both models. 3D bioprinting has emerged as vanguard technique in assembling cells, biomaterials and biomolecules in a spatially controlled manner to reproduce native tissue architectures. This technique combines the features of 3D printing such as the complete control over the design, fabrication and modelling of the scaffold (He et al., 2016; Hölzl et al.,1016). 3D porous biomaterial designs could improve cell-cell contact, cell-matrix interactions and enhance oxygen, nutrient and waste diffusion. The biofabrication of hydrogel-based constructs are relevant for developing 3D models which could be useful as drug screening tools and implantable devices. Nevertheless, the generation of cell-laden prototyped scaffolds remains challenging due to two major disadvantages. First, the loss of cell viability due to extrusion pressure and nozzle diameter. Second, hydrogel mechanically stable construct built-up without internal pore collapse remains the main challenge. In addition, cell behavior could be also affected by matrix stiffness (Belgodere et al., 2018; Serrano et al., 2018). It has been reported that gelatin methacylamide (gelMA) demonstrated good in vitro cytocompatibility for the encapsulation of various cell lines (Schuurman et al., 2013; Nichol et al., 2010; Du et al., 2008). Taking all this into account, the generation of a highly viable cell-laden gelatin scaffold with sufficient mechanical stability would be desirable. The main goal of the present work is to develop a 3D microenvironment applying post-processing cross-linking of cell-laden gelatins. An evaluation of two crosslinking ways were performed, and a study on the printing of cell-laden hydrogels is presented.