An interfacial self-assembling bioink for the manufacturing of capillary-like structures with tuneable and anisotropic permeability

Wu, Yuanhao; Fortunato, Gabriele Maria; Okesola, Babatunde O; Pellerej Di Brocchetti, Francesco Luigi; Suntornnond, Ratima; Connelly, John; De Maria, Carmelo; Carlos Rodriguez-Cabello, Jose Carlos; Vozzi, Giovanni; Wang, Wen; Mata, Alvaro; Et Al, Wu

Abstract

Self-assembling bioinks offer the possibility to biofabricate with molecular precision, hierarchical control, and biofunctionality. For this to become a reality with widespread impact, it is essential to engineer these ink systems ensuring reproducibility and providing suitable standardization. We have reported a self-assembling bioink based on disordered-to-ordered transitions of an elastin-like recombinamer (ELR) to co-assemble with graphene oxide (GO). Here, we establish reproducible processes, optimize printing parameters for its use as a bioink, describe new advantages that the self-assembling bioink can provide, and demonstrate how to fabricate novel structures with physiological relevance. We fabricate capillary-like structures with resolutions down to ~10 µm in diameter and ~2 µm thick tube walls and use both experimental and finite element analysis to characterize the printing conditions, underlying interfacial diffusion-reaction mechanism of assembly, printing fidelity, and material porosity and permeability. We demonstrate the capacity to modulate the pore size and tune the permeability of the resulting structures with and without human umbilical vascular endothelial cells (hUVECs). Finally, the potential of the ELR-GO bioink to enable supramolecular fabrication of biomimetic structures was demonstrated by printing tubes exhibiting walls with progressively different structure and permeability.

Citation

Wu, Y., Fortunato, G. M., Okesola, B. O., Pellerej Di Brocchetti, F. L., Suntornnond, R., Connelly, J., …Et Al, W. (2021). An interfacial self-assembling bioink for the manufacturing of capillary-like structures with tuneable and anisotropic permeability. Biofabrication, 13(3), Article 035027. https://doi.org/10.1088/1758-5090/abe4c3

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 4, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Feb 9, 2021
• Publication Date: Apr 8, 2021
• Deposit Date: Feb 4, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 10, 2022
• Journal: Biofabrication
• Print ISSN: 1758-5082
• Electronic ISSN: 1758-5090
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 3
• Article Number: 035027
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1758-5090/abe4c3
• Keywords: Biotechnology; Biochemistry; Bioengineering; Biomaterials; Biomedical Engineering; General Medicine
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5292037
• Publisher URL: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1758-5090/abe4c3