Improving Cell Viability and Velocity in μ-Extrusion Bioprinting with a Novel Pre-Incubator Bioprinter and a Standard FDM 3D Printing Nozzle.

Juan C Gómez-Blanco,Federica Marinaro,David Patrocinio,María Duarte-León,Álvaro J Sánchez-Ortega,Victor Galván-Chacón,Francisco M Sánchez-Margallo,Alfonso C Marcos,Manuel Matamoros,José B Pagador

doi:10.3390/ma14113100

Abstract

Bioprinting is a promising emerging technology. It has been widely studied by the scientific community for the possibility to create transplantable artificial tissues, with minimal risk to the patient. Although the biomaterials and cells to be used are being carefully studied, there is still a long way to go before a bioprinter can easily and quickly produce printings without harmful effects on the cells. In this sense, we have developed a new μ-extrusion bioprinter formed by an Atom Proton 3D printer, an atmospheric enclosure and a new extrusion-head capable to increment usual printing velocity. Hence, this work has two main objectives. First, to experimentally study the accuracy and precision. Secondly, to study the influence of flow rates on cellular viability using this novel μ-extrusion bioprinter in combination with a standard FDM 3D printing nozzle. Our results show an X, Y and Z axis movement accuracy under 17 μm with a precision around 12 μm while the extruder values are under 5 and 7 μm, respectively. Additionally, the cell viability obtained from different volumetric flow tests varies from 70 to 90%. So, the proposed bioprinter and nozzle can control the atmospheric conditions and increase the volumetric flow speeding up the bioprinting process without compromising the cell viability.

Highlights

IntroductionBioprinting is nowadays an emerging technology widely used in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering
The bioink must be appropriate for the process and the bioprinting procedure itself
Of the bioprinting procedure the ideal bioprinter was described by Dababneh and Ozbolat [7] and they concluded that this bioprinter must have 10 main characteristics:

Summary

Introduction

Bioprinting is nowadays an emerging technology widely used in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. It can be defined as a technology capable of an accurate deposition of cells and biochemical components layer by layer to create defined structures using materials, bioactive molecules and cells [1,2]. To obtain a fully functional tissue all properties and functionalities of the desired tissue must be considered and adapted to the material and cell-line for the bioprinting procedure. In this sense, the bioink must be appropriate for the process and the bioprinting procedure itself. Of the bioprinting procedure the ideal bioprinter was described by Dababneh and Ozbolat [7] and they concluded that this bioprinter must have 10 main characteristics:

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion