3D Bioprinting of Gelatin-Xanthan Gum Composite Hydrogels for Growth of Human Skin Cells.

Beatrice Piola,Filippo Renò,Maurizio Sabbatini,Marco Invernizzi,Sarah Gino

doi:10.3390/ijms23010539

Abstract

In recent years, bioprinting has attracted much attention as a potential tool for generating complex 3D biological constructs capable of mimicking the native tissue microenvironment and promoting physiologically relevant cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions. The aim of the present study was to develop a crosslinked 3D printable hydrogel based on biocompatible natural polymers, gelatin and xanthan gum at different percentages to be used both as a scaffold for cell growth and as a wound dressing. The CellInk Inkredible 3D printer was used for the 3D printing of hydrogels, and a glutaraldehyde solution was tested for the crosslinking process. We were able to obtain two kinds of printable hydrogels with different porosity, swelling and degradation time. Subsequently, the printed hydrogels were characterized from the point of view of biocompatibility. Our results showed that gelatin/xanthan-gum bioprinted hydrogels were biocompatible materials, as they allowed both human keratinocyte and fibroblast in vitro growth for 14 days. These two bioprintable hydrogels could be also used as a helpful dressing material.

Highlights

Received: 4 November 2021Hydrogels are crosslinked, insoluble and hydrophilic polymers that are capable of containing a large amount of water thanks to their porosity and three-dimensional network structure [1]
In the framework of extrusion bioprinting, hydrogel printability generally refers to the extrudability, filament formation and shape fidelity
A comparison of the different hybrid composites hydrogels showed that both 3Gel4 crosslinked and non-crosslinked have a defined shape compared to 2.5Gel3, which appears to be less viscous. These results showed that xanthan gum is a good stabilizing agent, because the hydrogel with 3 w/v% of Gel without crosslinker is able to maintain its print shape, which even improves after the immersion in GTA

Summary

Introduction

Received: 4 November 2021Hydrogels are crosslinked, insoluble and hydrophilic polymers that are capable of containing a large amount of water thanks to their porosity and three-dimensional network structure [1]. The hydrophilic capacity of hydrogels is due to the presence of hydrophilic groups along the polymer chain, while crosslinks can be built by electrostatic dipole–dipole interactions and covalent bonds [2]. Hydrogels have aroused a significant interest in biomedical and clinical research due to their capacity to create a favorable microenvironment for cell growth and/or differentiation [3]. They have several application domains, such as drug delivery [4,5], tissue engineering [2,6,7], regenerative medicine [8,9] and wound dressings [10–12]. Hybrid composite hydrogels (made by gelatin, xanthan gum, glutaraldehyde and HPLC-grade water) have been shown to exhibit good wound-healing ability [13]. Its biodegradability is the result of the presence of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) cleavage sites, and it is an important characteristic for Accepted: 30 December 2021

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