Surface Engineered Biomimetic Inks Based on UV Cross-Linkable Wood Biopolymers for 3D Printing

Wenyang Xu, Xue Zhang, Peiru Yang, Otto Långvik, Xiaoju Wang*, Yongchao Zhang, Fang Cheng, Monika Österberg, Stefan Willför, Chunlin Xu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

73 Citations (Scopus)
385 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Owing to their superior mechanical strength and structure similarity to the extracellular matrix, nanocelluloses as a class of emerging biomaterials have attracted great attention in three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting to fabricate various tissue mimics. Yet, when printing complex geometries, the desired ink performance in terms of shape fidelity and object resolution demands a wide catalogue of tunability on the material property. This paper describes surface engineered biomimetic inks based on cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) and cross-linkable hemicellulose derivatives for UV-aided extrusion printing, being inspired by the biomimetic aspect of intrinsic affinity of heteropolysaccharides to cellulose in providing the ultrastrong but flexible plant cell wall structure. A facile aqueous-based approach was established for the synthesis of a series of UV cross-linkable galactoglucomannan methacrylates (GGMMAs) with tunable substitution degrees. The rapid gelation window of the formulated inks facilitates the utilization of these wood-based biopolymers as the feeding ink for extrusion-based 3D printing. Most importantly, a wide and tunable spectrum ranging from 2.5 to 22.5 kPa of different hydrogels with different mechanical properties could be achieved by varying the substitution degree in GGMMA and the compositional ratio between GGMMA and CNFs. Used as the seeding matrices in the cultures of human dermal fibroblasts and pancreatic tumor cells, the scaffolds printed with the CNF/GGMMA inks showed great cytocompatibility as well as supported the matrix adhesion and proliferative behaviors of the studied cell lines. As a new family of 3D printing feedstock materials, the CNF/GGMMA ink will broaden the map of bioinks, which potentially meets the requirements for a variety of in vitro cell-matrix and cell-cell interaction studies in the context of tissue engineering, cancer cell research, and high-throughput drug screening.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)12389-12400
Number of pages12
JournalACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Volume11
Issue number13
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Apr 2019
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • 3D printing
  • biomedical applications
  • cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs)
  • galactoglucomannan methacrylate (GGMMA)
  • mechanical properties
  • UV cross-linking

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