Abstract
Three-dimensional (3D) organ bioprinting is an attractive scientific area with huge commercial profit, which could solve all the serious bottleneck problems for allograft transplantation, high-throughput drug screening, and pathological analysis. Integrating multiple heterogeneous adult cell types and/or stem cells along with other biomaterials (e.g., polymers, bioactive agents, or biomolecules) to make 3D constructs functional is one of the core issues for 3D bioprinting of bioartificial organs. Both natural and synthetic polymers play essential and ubiquitous roles for hierarchical vascular and neural network formation in 3D printed constructs based on their specific physical, chemical, biological, and physiological properties. In this article, several advanced polymers with excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability, 3D printability, and structural stability are reviewed. The challenges and perspectives of polymers for rapid manufacturing of complex organs, such as the liver, heart, kidney, lung, breast, and brain, are outlined.
Highlights
In nature, all the complicated phenomena of life, including human organs, are the result of biochemical and biophysical changes of molecules
Natural polymers are widely existent in animal, plant, and microbe tissues as the main components of extracellular matrices (ECMs) or decellularized extracellular matrices
Synthetic polymers are human-made polymers produced by chemical reactions of monomers, which may be derived from petroleum oil
Summary
All the complicated phenomena of life, including human organs, are the result of biochemical and biophysical changes of molecules (or materials at a molecular level). Several series of unique automatic and semiautomatic bioartificial organ manufacturing technologies have been created in my own group with the proper integration of modern high technologies, including computer, biology (e.g., cells and stem cells), biomaterials (e.g., polymers), chemistry, mechanics, and medicine With these unique high technologies, we have solved all the bottleneck problems that have perplexed tissue engineers and other scientists for more than 6–7 decades, such as large-scale tissue/organ manufacturing [21,22,23,24], hierarchical vascular/nerve network construction with a fully endothelialized inner surface and antisuture/antistress capabilities [25,26,27,28,29], step-by-step adipose-derived stem cell (ASC) differentiation in a 3D construct [30,31,32], long-term preservation of bioartificial tissues/organs [33,34,35], in vitro metabolism model establishment [36,37], high-throughput drug screening [38,39,40], in vivo biocompatibilities of implanted biomaterials [41,42,43]. Several polymers have played essential and ubiquitous roles for bioartificial organ manufacturing with the incorporation of multiple cell types, stem cells/growth factors, and hierarchical vascular and neural networks with antisuture and antistress functions
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