Tailor-made conductive inks from cellulose nanofibrils for 3D printing of neural guidelines

Volodymyr Kuzmenko; Erdem Karabulut; Elin Pernevik; Peter Enoksson; Paul Gatenholm

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.01.097

Tailor-made conductive inks from cellulose nanofibrils for 3D printing of neural guidelines

Carbohydr Polym. 2018 Jun 1:189:22-30. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.01.097. Epub 2018 Feb 1.

Authors

Volodymyr Kuzmenko¹, Erdem Karabulut², Elin Pernevik³, Peter Enoksson⁴, Paul Gatenholm⁵

Affiliations

¹ Wallenberg Wood Science Center, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden; Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden. Electronic address: kuzmenko@chalmers.se.
² Wallenberg Wood Science Center, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden; Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden. Electronic address: erdemk@chalmers.se.
³ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden. Electronic address: ep@cellink.com.
⁴ Wallenberg Wood Science Center, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden; Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden. Electronic address: peter.enoksson@chalmers.se.
⁵ Wallenberg Wood Science Center, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden; Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden. Electronic address: paul.gatenholm@chalmers.se.

PMID: 29580403
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.01.097

Abstract

Neural tissue engineering (TE), an innovative biomedical method of brain study, is very dependent on scaffolds that support cell development into a functional tissue. Recently, 3D patterned scaffolds for neural TE have shown significant positive effects on cells by a more realistic mimicking of actual neural tissue. In this work, we present a conductive nanocellulose-based ink for 3D printing of neural TE scaffolds. It is demonstrated that by using cellulose nanofibrils and carbon nanotubes as ink constituents, it is possible to print guidelines with a diameter below 1 mm and electrical conductivity of 3.8 × 10^-1 S cm^-1. The cell culture studies reveal that neural cells prefer to attach, proliferate, and differentiate on the 3D printed conductive guidelines. To our knowledge, this is the first research effort devoted to using cost-effective cellulosic 3D printed structures in neural TE, and we suppose that much more will arise in the near future.

Keywords: 3D printing; Cellulose nanofibrils; Conductive ink; Neural tissue engineering.

MeSH terms

Cell Line, Tumor
Cell Survival / drug effects
Cellulose / chemistry*
Cellulose / pharmacology
Humans
Microscopy, Atomic Force
Microscopy, Confocal
Microscopy, Electron, Scanning
Nanotubes, Carbon / chemistry
Printing, Three-Dimensional*
Tissue Engineering / methods

Substances

Nanotubes, Carbon
Cellulose