Printing cell embedded sacrificial strategy for microvasculature using degradable DNA biolubricant

Jiezhong Shi, Yifei Wan, Haoyang Jia, Gregor Skeldon, Dirk Jan Cornelissen, Katrina Wesencraft, Junxi Wu, Gail McConnell, Quan Chen, Dongsheng Liu, Wenmiao Shu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Microvasculature is essential for the continued function of cells in tissue and is fundamental in the fields of tissue engineering, organ repair and drug screening. However, the fabrication of microvasculature is still challenging using existing strategies. Here, we developed a general PRINting Cell Embedded Sacrificial Strategy (PRINCESS) and successfully fabricated microvasculatures using degradable DNA biolubricant. This is the first demonstration of direct cell printing to fabricate microvasculature, which eliminates the need for a subsequent cell seeding process and the associated deficiencies. Utilizing the shear-thinning property of DNA hydrogels as a novel sacrificial, cell-laden biolubricant, we can print a 70-μm endothelialized microvasculature, breaking the limit of 100 μm. To our best knowledge, this is the smallest endothelialized microvasculature that has ever been bioprinted so far. In addition, the self-healing property of DNA hydrogels allows the creation of continuous branched structures. This strategy provides a new platform for constructing complex hierarchical vascular networks and offers new opportunity towards engineering thick tissues. The extremely low volume of sacrificial biolubricant paves the way for DNA hydrogels to be used in practical tissue engineering applications. The high-resolution bioprinting technique also exhibits great potential for printing lymphatics, retinas and neural networks in the future.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere202417510
Number of pages12
JournalAngewandte Chemie International Edition
Early online date26 Oct 2024
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 26 Oct 2024

Keywords

  • microvasculature
  • DNA biolubricant
  • 3D bioprinting
  • tissue engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Printing cell embedded sacrificial strategy for microvasculature using degradable DNA biolubricant'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this