Abstract
It is difficult to fabricate tubular-shaped tissues and organs (e.g., trachea, blood vessel, and esophagus tissue) with traditional biofabrication techniques (e.g., electrospinning, cell-sheet engineering, and mold-casting) because these have complicated multiple processes. In addition, the tubular-shaped tissues and organs have their own design with target-specific mechanical and biological properties. Therefore, the customized geometrical and physiological environment is required as one of the most critical factors for functional tissue regeneration. 3D bioprinting technology has been receiving attention for the fabrication of patient-tailored and complex-shaped free-form architecture with high reproducibility and versatility. Printable biocomposite inks that can facilitate to build tissue constructs with polymeric frameworks and biochemical microenvironmental cues are also being actively developed for the reconstruction of functional tissue. In this review, we delineated the state-of-the-art of 3D bioprinting techniques specifically for tubular tissue and organ regeneration. In addition, this review described biocomposite inks, such as natural and synthetic polymers. Several described engineering approaches using 3D bioprinting techniques and biocomposite inks may offer beneficial characteristics for the physiological mimicry of human tubular tissues and organs.
Highlights
Tubular tissues and organs exist with various forms and functions in the gastrointestinal, respiratory, vascular, and urinary systems [1]
Donor tissue transplantation is an ideal option, but there remains a disparity between the number of the appropriate donors and the high demand for the therapeutic use of donor tissue [5,6,7]
The extrusion head moves in the x, y, and z directions under the instruction of the CAD-CAM software to produce a 3D architecture by staked biomaterial onto the substrate. Even if this technique has a lower accuracy than the other 3D bioprinting methods, it can be capable of various biomaterials, such as cell-laden bioink, cell-spheroids, hydrogels, and high-viscosity thermoplastic polymers
Summary
Tubular tissues and organs exist with various forms and functions in the gastrointestinal (esophagus, intestines), respiratory (trachea), vascular (veins, arteries), and urinary (bladder, urethra) systems [1] These tubular tissues have various diseases and malfunctions requiring appropriate therapeutic interventions, such as donor tissue transplantation, autologous implant, and replacement with a synthetic prosthesis. Various microfabrication techniques for tissue engineering, such as electrospinning [14,15,16,17,18,19], cell-sheet engineering [20,21,22], and mold-casting [23,24,25,26], have been widely studied to make complex multi-layered architecture for artificial functional tubular tissues These approaches would use additional substrates (e.g., rotating rod, sacrificial mold) to create the tubular architecture, as well as requiring complex and multiple manufacturing processes. Due to these functional 3D fabrication requirements, four types of 3D bioprinting techniques have been developed based on the principle of releasing the printable biomaterials from the printing head
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