Chapter 4
Photocurable Biopolymers for Coaxial Bioprinting
Marco Costantini, Andrea Barbetta, Wojciech Swieszkowski,
Dror Seliktar, Cesare Gargioli, and Alberto Rainer
Abstract
Thanks to their unique advantages, additive manufacturing technologies are revolutionizing almost all
sectors of the industrial and academic worlds, including tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In
particular, 3D bioprinting is rapidly emerging as a first-choice approach for the fabrication—in one step—of
advanced cell-laden hydrogel constructs to be used for in vitro and in vivo studies. This technique consists
in the precise deposition layer-by-layer of sub-millimetric hydrogel strands in which living cells are embedded. A key factor of this process consists in the proper formulation of the hydrogel precursor solution, the
so-called bioink. Ideal bioinks should be able, on the one side, to support cell growth and differentiation
and, on the other, to allow the high-resolution deposition of cell-laden hydrogel strands. The latter feature
requires the extruded solution to instantaneously undergo a sol-gel transition to avoid its collapse after
deposition.
To address this challenge, researchers are recently focusing their attention on the synthesis of several
derivatives of natural biopolymers to enhance their printability. Here, we present an approach for the
synthesis of photocurable derivatives of natural biopolymers—namely, gelatin methacrylate, hyaluronic acid
methacrylate, chondroitin sulfate methacrylate, and PEGylated fibrinogen—that can be used to formulate
tailored innovative bioinks for coaxial-based 3D bioprinting applications.
Key words Coaxial bioprinting, Photocurable polymers, Alginate, Bioink formulation
1 Introduction
Nowadays, additive manufacturing systems represent a fast and
cost-effective biofabrication technology, able to create 3D objects
with high precision, high resolution, and high reproducibility
[1]. Thanks to these attractive features, additive manufacturing
and bioprinting are rapidly becoming a first-choice approach for
the production of engineered materials for tissue engineering (TE)
[2]. In particular, 3D bioprinting represents one of the most innovative and promising approaches for the fabrication in one step of
advanced cell-laden constructs, which aim to recapitulate the complexity of human organs and tissues. Like other additive
Alberto Rainer and Lorenzo Moroni (eds.), Computer-Aided Tissue Engineering: Methods and Protocols,
Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2147, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0611-7_4,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021
45
Photocurable Biopolymers for Coaxial Bioprinting
Marco Costantini, Andrea Barbetta, Wojciech Swieszkowski,
Dror Seliktar, Cesare Gargioli, and Alberto Rainer
Abstract
Thanks to their unique advantages, additive manufacturing technologies are revolutionizing almost all
sectors of the industrial and academic worlds, including tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In
particular, 3D bioprinting is rapidly emerging as a first-choice approach for the fabrication—in one step—of
advanced cell-laden hydrogel constructs to be used for in vitro and in vivo studies. This technique consists
in the precise deposition layer-by-layer of sub-millimetric hydrogel strands in which living cells are embedded. A key factor of this process consists in the proper formulation of the hydrogel precursor solution, the
so-called bioink. Ideal bioinks should be able, on the one side, to support cell growth and differentiation
and, on the other, to allow the high-resolution deposition of cell-laden hydrogel strands. The latter feature
requires the extruded solution to instantaneously undergo a sol-gel transition to avoid its collapse after
deposition.
To address this challenge, researchers are recently focusing their attention on the synthesis of several
derivatives of natural biopolymers to enhance their printability. Here, we present an approach for the
synthesis of photocurable derivatives of natural biopolymers—namely, gelatin methacrylate, hyaluronic acid
methacrylate, chondroitin sulfate methacrylate, and PEGylated fibrinogen—that can be used to formulate
tailored innovative bioinks for coaxial-based 3D bioprinting applications.
Key words Coaxial bioprinting, Photocurable polymers, Alginate, Bioink formulation
1 Introduction
Nowadays, additive manufacturing systems represent a fast and
cost-effective biofabrication technology, able to create 3D objects
with high precision, high resolution, and high reproducibility
[1]. Thanks to these attractive features, additive manufacturing
and bioprinting are rapidly becoming a first-choice approach for
the production of engineered materials for tissue engineering (TE)
[2]. In particular, 3D bioprinting represents one of the most innovative and promising approaches for the fabrication in one step of
advanced cell-laden constructs, which aim to recapitulate the complexity of human organs and tissues. Like other additive
Alberto Rainer and Lorenzo Moroni (eds.), Computer-Aided Tissue Engineering: Methods and Protocols,
Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2147, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0611-7_4,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021
45