Fibre-infused gel scaffolds guide cardiomyocyte alignment in 3D-printed ventricles

Hydrogels are attractive materials for tissue engineering, but efforts to date have shown limited ability to produce the microstructural features necessary to promote cellular self-organization into hierarchical three-dimensional (3D) organ models. Here we develop a hydrogel ink containing prefabric...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature materials 2023-08, Vol.22 (8), p.1039-1046
Main Authors: Choi, Suji, Lee, Keel Yong, Kim, Sean L., MacQueen, Luke A., Chang, Huibin, Zimmerman, John F., Jin, Qianru, Peters, Michael M., Ardoña, Herdeline Ann M., Liu, Xujie, Heiler, Ann-Caroline, Gabardi, Rudy, Richardson, Collin, Pu, William T., Bausch, Andreas R., Parker, Kevin Kit
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/1647/767/1657
631/61/54/2295
Alginates
Alignment
Biomaterials
Biomimetics
Cardiomyocytes
Chemistry and Materials Science
Condensed Matter Physics
Fibers
Gelatin
Gelatin - chemistry
Humans
Hydrogels
Hydrogels - chemistry
Materials Science
Myocytes, Cardiac
Nanotechnology
Optical and Electronic Materials
Prefabrication
Printing, Three-Dimensional
Rheological properties
Rheology
Scaffolds
Sol-gel processes
Three dimensional models
Three dimensional printing
Tissue engineering
Tissue Engineering - methods
Tissue Scaffolds - chemistry
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Summary:Hydrogels are attractive materials for tissue engineering, but efforts to date have shown limited ability to produce the microstructural features necessary to promote cellular self-organization into hierarchical three-dimensional (3D) organ models. Here we develop a hydrogel ink containing prefabricated gelatin fibres to print 3D organ-level scaffolds that recapitulate the intra- and intercellular organization of the heart. The addition of prefabricated gelatin fibres to hydrogels enables the tailoring of the ink rheology, allowing for a controlled sol–gel transition to achieve precise printing of free-standing 3D structures without additional supporting materials. Shear-induced alignment of fibres during ink extrusion provides microscale geometric cues that promote the self-organization of cultured human cardiomyocytes into anisotropic muscular tissues in vitro. The resulting 3D-printed ventricle in vitro model exhibited biomimetic anisotropic electrophysiological and contractile properties. A gelatin–alginate hydrogel ink incorporating short gelatin fibres guides the self-organization of human cardiomyocytes into contractile tissues that can be 3D-printed into structures mimicking human organs.
ISSN:1476-1122
1476-4660
DOI:10.1038/s41563-023-01611-3