abstract
Embedded bio-printing has fostered significant advances toward the fabrication of soft complex tissue-like constructs, by providing a physical support that allows the freeform shape maintenance within the prescribed spatial arrangement, even under gravity force. Current supporting materials still present major drawbacks for up-scaling embedded 3D bio-printing technology towards tissue-like constructs with clinically relevant dimensions. Herein, we report a a cost-effective and widely available supporting material for embedded bio-printing consisting on a continuous pseudo-plastic matrix of xanthan-gum (XG). This natural polisaccharide exhibits peculiar rheological properties that have enabled the rapid generation of complex volumetric 3D constructs with out-of-plane features. The freedom of design within the three orthogonal axes through the independent and controlled bio-printing process opens new opportunities to produce on demand large arbitrary shapes for personalized medicine. Additionally, we have demonstrated the versatile functionality of XG as a photocurable gel reservoir to engineer perfused cell-laden hydrogel constructs, addressing other practical biomedical applications such as in vitro models and organ-on-chip platforms.
keywords
XANTHAN GUM; HYDROGELS; NETWORKS
subject category
Engineering; Materials Science
authors
Patricio, SG; Sousa, LR; Correia, TR; Gaspar, VM; Pires, LS; Luis, JL; Oliveira, JM; Mano, JF
our authors
J. Martinho Oliveira
Coordinator Professor
João Mano
Vice Director
Jorge Louro Luís
PhD Student
Liliana Sofia Oliveira Pires
Adjunct Professor
Sónia Gonçalves Patrício
Assistant Researcher
Tiago Ruivo Correia
Junior Researcher
Vítor Gaspar
Assistant ProfessorGroups
G4 - Renewable Materials and Circular Economy
G5 - Biomimetic, Biological and Living Materials
Projects
acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the Programa Operacional Competitividade e InternacionalizacAo (POCI), in the component FEDER, and by national funds (OE) through FCT/MCTES, in the scope of PANGEIA (PTDC/BTM-SAL/30503/2017) and MARGEL (PTDC/BTM-MAT/31498/2017) projects. This work was also developed within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020) financed by national funds through the FCT/MCTES. The costs resulting from the FCT hirings is funded by national funds (OE), through FCT in the scope of the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of the article 23, of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19. LSCM image acquisition was performed in the LiM facility of iBiMED, a node of PPBI (Portuguese Platform of BioImaging) with grant agreement number POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022122.