Engineering of brain-like tissue constructs via 3D Cell-printing technology

Abstract

The development of 3D Cell-printing technology contributes to the application of tissue constructs in vitro in neuroscience. Collecting neural cells from patients is an efficient way of monitoring health of an individual target, which, in turn, benefits the enhancement of medicines. The fabricated sample of neural cells is exposed to potential drugs for the analysis of neuron responses. 3D cell-printing as an emerging biofabrication technology has been widely used to mimic natural 3D models in in vitro tissue research, especially in vitro brain-like tissue constructs in neuroscience. Fabricated brain-like tissue constructs provide a 3D microenvironment for primary neural cells to grow within. After more than several weeks of in vitro culturing, the formation of neural circuits in structures equips them with the capability of sensitively responding to a stimulus. In this study, an in vitro layered brain-like tissue construct is first proposed and later developed by 3D cell-printing technology. The layered structure is systematically analyzed, starting from printing parameter optimization to biological functionality performance. The optimized diameter of printing nozzle and printing speed are 0.51 mm and 5 µl s −1 , respectively, and the elastic modulus is approximately 6 kPa. Live/dead and immunostaining imaging is used to verify the growth of neural cells in the printed structure. The survival rate of neural cells in 2D and 3D samples is compared, and the results demonstrate that the 3D-printed structures exhibit a better artificial culturing environment and a higher survival rate. Both 2D and 3D samples are directly cultured in a 4 × 4 multiple electrode array. Local field potentials are collected and validated by the Med64 recording system. Tetrodotoxin is used to test the drug sensitivity of the printed structure, and the excitatory postsynaptic potential signals of the physiological performance indicate that the 3D-printed structure has great potential as a drug testing model in the pharmaypeceutical study.

3D bioprinting of bicellular liver lobule-mimetic structures via microextrusion of cellulose nanocrystal-incorporated shear-thinning bioink

“…suitable ECM), due to the enhancement of hydrogel mechanical strength by CNC incorporation. Overall, these printing results exemplified the great potential of the unique CNC-incorporated 135ACG bioink for ME printing of cell-compatible structures with high aspect ratio [46][47][48] .…”

3D Printing of Cell‐Laden Microgel‐Based Biphasic Bioink with Heterogeneous Microenvironment for Biomedical Applications

“…3D bioprinting has attracted great interest for its capability to precisely deposit cells and materials (i.e., bioinks) into 3D complex structures, toward applications in engineering in vitro living systems that can be used in disease modeling [ 1 ] and tissue regeneration. [ 2,3 ] Various bioprinting techniques have been developed so far such as inkjet bioprinting [ 4 ] and digital light processing (DLP) ‐based bioprinting. [ 5 ] Among them, the most common modality is extrusion bioprinting, in which a bioink needs to be extruded and then rapidly stabilized to preserve fidelity of the printed structures by digital design.…”

Tackling Current Biomedical Challenges With Frontier Biofabrication and Organ-On-A-Chip Technologies

“…Thus, the demand for 3D-biofabricated tissues and organ-on-a-chip devices is significantly increasing thanks to their key advantages of enabling direct real-time or end-point analysis. These systems can reveal the collective and independent interaction of an organ’s different tissue components with new therapeutics and unveil the mechanism of drug action and their efficacy at the molecular level ( Benam et al, 2016 ; Knowlton and Tasoglu, 2016 ; Srivastava et al, 2016 ; Song et al, 2020 ; Si et al, 2021 ). However, small culture volumes and low cell numbers in these platforms often give rise to technical issues associated with detection sensitivity and specificity.…”