Bioprinting microporous functional living materials from protein-based core-shell microgels

Yangteng Ou, Shixiang Cao, Yang Zhang, Hongjia Zhu, Chengzhi Guo, Wei Yan, Fengxue Xin, Weiliang Dong, Yanli Zhang, Masashi Narita, Ziyi Yu () and Tuomas P. J. Knowles ()
Additional contact information
Yangteng Ou: Nanjing Tech University
Shixiang Cao: Nanjing Tech University
Yang Zhang: Nanjing Tech University
Hongjia Zhu: University of Cambridge
Chengzhi Guo: Nanjing Tech University
Wei Yan: Nanjing Tech University
Fengxue Xin: Nanjing Tech University
Weiliang Dong: Nanjing Tech University
Yanli Zhang: University of Cambridge
Masashi Narita: University of Cambridge
Ziyi Yu: Nanjing Tech University
Tuomas P. J. Knowles: University of Cambridge

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract Living materials bring together material science and biology to allow the engineering and augmenting of living systems with novel functionalities. Bioprinting promises accurate control over the formation of such complex materials through programmable deposition of cells in soft materials, but current approaches had limited success in fine-tuning cell microenvironments while generating robust macroscopic morphologies. Here, we address this challenge through the use of core-shell microgel ink to decouple cell microenvironments from the structural shell for further processing. Cells are microfluidically immobilized in the viscous core that can promote the formation of both microbial populations and mammalian cellular spheroids, followed by interparticle annealing to give covalently stabilized functional scaffolds with controlled microporosity. The results show that the core-shell strategy mitigates cell leakage while affording a favorable environment for cell culture. Furthermore, we demonstrate that different microbial consortia can be printed into scaffolds for a range of applications. By compartmentalizing microbial consortia in separate microgels, the collective bioprocessing capability of the scaffold is significantly enhanced, shedding light on strategies to augment living materials with bioprocessing capabilities.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35140-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-35140-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35140-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().