Abstract
Advances in 3D bioprinting have allowed the use of stem cells along with biomaterials and growth factors toward novel tissue engineering approaches. However, the cost of these systems along with their consumables is currently extremely high, limiting their applicability. To address this, we converted a 3D printer into an open source 3D bioprinter and produced a customized bioink based on accessible alginate/gelatin precursors, leading to a cost-effective solution. The bioprinter’s resolution, including line width, spreading ratio and extrusion uniformity measurements, along with the rheological properties of the bioinks were analyzed, revealing high bioprinting accuracy within the printability window. Following the bioprinting process, cell survival and proliferation were validated on HeLa Kyoto and HEK293T cell lines. In addition, we isolated and 3D bioprinted postnatal neural stem cell progenitors derived from the mouse subventricular zone as well as mesenchymal stem cells derived from mouse bone marrow. Our results suggest that our low-cost 3D bioprinter can support cell proliferation and differentiation of two different types of primary stem cell populations, indicating that it can be used as a reliable tool for developing efficient research models for stem cell research and tissue engineering.
Highlights
Three dimensional (3D) bioprinting is a new interdisciplinary research field, which utilizes computer engineering, material science, robotics and biomedical engineering in order to provide novel applications in life sciences through tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (Aljohani et al, 2018)
We demonstrate the conversion of a low cost commercially available 3D printer (∼120$) into a 3D bioprinter
The bioinks used in this study are based on alginate-gelatin, resulting in low cost polymer precursors that are available at any biomedical laboratory
Summary
Three dimensional (3D) bioprinting is a new interdisciplinary research field, which utilizes computer engineering, material science, robotics and biomedical engineering in order to provide novel applications in life sciences through tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (Aljohani et al, 2018). Culture and differentiation of stem cells inside 3D in vitro systems generated by bioprinters (Hsieh et al, 2015; Bae et al, 2018; Sorkio et al, 2018) has attracted attention regarding the applications of 3D bioprinting in the field of regenerative medicine This technology can provide significant advantages in biomedical research, mainly due to the fact that in certain cases in vitro research methods are been developed and leading to the replacement of animal models (Yun et al, 2018), reducing the cost and time needed for research. More reliable methods for drug development need to be established, which can reduce the cost and time of drug development by eliminating false selection of drug-hits obtained from 2D drug screenings
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