Aspiration-assisted freeform bioprinting of prefabricated tissue spheroids in a yield-stress gel

Bugra Ayan; Nazmiye Celik; Zhifeng Zhang; Kui Zhou; Myoung Hwan Kim; Dishary Banerjee; Yang Wu; Francesco Costanzo; Ibrahim T Ozbolat

doi:10.1038/s42005-020-00449-4

Aspiration-assisted freeform bioprinting of prefabricated tissue spheroids in a yield-stress gel

Commun Phys. 2020:3:183. doi: 10.1038/s42005-020-00449-4. Epub 2020 Oct 16.

Authors

Bugra Ayan^{1

2

3}, Nazmiye Celik^{1

2}, Zhifeng Zhang¹, Kui Zhou^{1

2

4}, Myoung Hwan Kim^{2

5}, Dishary Banerjee^{1

2}, Yang Wu^{1

2

6}, Francesco Costanzo^{1

2

5}, Ibrahim T Ozbolat^{1

2

5

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Engineering Science and Mechanics Department, Penn State University, 212 Earth-Engineering Sciences Bldg., University Park, PA 16802, USA.
² The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Penn State University, 101 Huck Life Sciences Bldg., University Park, PA 16802, USA.
³ Present address: Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94035, USA.
⁴ Present address: School of Mechatronics Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China.
⁵ Biomedical Engineering Department, Penn State University, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Bldg., University Park, PA 16802, USA.
⁶ Present address: School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁷ Materials Research Institute, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
⁸ Department of Neurosurgery, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA 17033, USA.

Abstract

Bioprinting of cellular aggregates, such as tissue spheroids, to form three-dimensional (3D) complex-shaped arrangements, has posed a major challenge due to lack of robust, reproducible and practical bioprinting techniques. Here, we demonstrate 3D aspiration-assisted freeform bioprinting of tissue spheroids by precisely positioning them in self-healing yield-stress gels, enabling the self-assembly of spheroids for fabrication of tissues. The presented approach enables the traverse of spheroids directly from the cell media to the gel and freeform positioning of the spheroids on demand. We study the underlying physical mechanism of the approach to elucidate the interactions between the aspirated spheroids and the gel's yield-stress during the transfer of spheroids from cell media to the gel. We further demonstrate the application of the proposed approach in the realization of various freeform shapes and self-assembly of human mesenchymal stem cell spheroids for the construction of cartilage and bone tissues.

Abstract

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