Abstract
3D bioprinting is a promising field in regenerating patient-specific tissues and organs due to its inherent capability of releasing biocompatible materials encapsulating living cells in a predefined location. Due to the diverse characteristics of tissues and organs in terms of microstructures and cell types, a multi-nozzle extrusion-based 3D bioprinting system has gained popularity. The investigations on interactions between various biomaterials and cell-to-material can provide relevant information about the scaffold geometry, cell viability, and proliferation. Natural hydrogels are frequently used in bioprinting materials because of their high-water content and biocompatibility. However, the dominance of liquid characteristics of only-hydrogel materials makes the printing process challenging. Polycaprolactone (PCL) is the most frequently used synthetic biopolymer. It can provide mechanical integrity to achieve dimensionally accurate fabricated scaffolds, especially for hard tissues such as bone and cartilage scaffolds. In this paper, we explored various multi-material bioprinting strategies with our recently proposed bio-inks and PCL intending to achieve dimensional accuracy and mechanical aspects. Various strategies were followed to co-print natural and synthetic biopolymers and interactions were analyzed between them. The dependence of scaffold geometry on the printing process parameters of synthetic polymer and the rheological properties of natural polymers were identified. The successful application of this research can help achieve dimensionally accurate scaffolds.
