Read Sophia A, Go Chee Shuen, Ferreira Miguel J S, Ligorio Cosimo, Kimber Susan J, Dumanli Ahu G, Domingos Marco A N
Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering & Henry Royce Institute, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Department of Materials, School of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering & Henry Royce Institute, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Pharmaceutics. 2023 Oct 7;15(10):2432. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics15102432.
Naturally derived polysaccharide-based hydrogels, such as alginate, are frequently used in the design of bioinks for 3D bioprinting. Traditionally, the formulation of such bioinks requires the use of pre-reticulated materials with low viscosities, which favour cell viability but can negatively influence the resolution and shape fidelity of the printed constructs. In this work, we propose the use of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as a rheological modifier to improve the printability of alginate-based bioinks whilst ensuring a high viability of encapsulated cells. Through rheological analysis, we demonstrate that the addition of CNCs (1% and 2% (/)) to alginate hydrogels (1% (/)) improves shear-thinning behaviour and mechanical stability, resulting in the high-fidelity printing of constructs with superior resolution. Importantly, LIVE/DEAD results confirm that the presence of CNCs does not seem to affect the health of immortalised chondrocytes (TC28a2) that remain viable over a period of seven days post-encapsulation. Taken together, our results indicate a favourable effect of the CNCs on the rheological and biocompatibility properties of alginate hydrogels, opening up new perspectives for the application of CNCs in the formulation of bioinks for extrusion-based bioprinting.
天然衍生的基于多糖的水凝胶，如藻酸盐，经常用于3D生物打印生物墨水的设计。传统上，此类生物墨水的配方需要使用低粘度的预交联材料，这有利于细胞活力，但可能会对打印结构的分辨率和形状保真度产生负面影响。在这项工作中，我们提出使用纤维素纳米晶体（CNCs）作为流变改性剂，以提高基于藻酸盐的生物墨水的可打印性，同时确保封装细胞的高活力。通过流变学分析，我们证明向藻酸盐水凝胶（1%（/））中添加CNCs（1%和2%（/））可改善剪切变稀行为和机械稳定性，从而实现具有卓越分辨率的结构的高保真打印。重要的是，活/死结果证实，CNCs的存在似乎不会影响永生化软骨细胞（TC28a2）的健康，这些细胞在封装后七天内仍保持活力。综上所述，我们的结果表明CNCs对藻酸盐水凝胶的流变学和生物相容性特性具有有利影响，为CNCs在基于挤出的生物打印生物墨水配方中的应用开辟了新的前景。
