TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ryma, Matthias
A1  - Genç, Hatice
A1  - Nadernezhad, Ali
A1  - Paulus, Ilona
A1  - Schneidereit, Dominik
A1  - Friedrich, Oliver
A1  - Andelovic, Kristina
A1  - Lyer, Stefan
A1  - Alexiou, Christoph
A1  - Cicha, Iwona
A1  - Groll, Jürgen
T1  - A Print-and-Fuse Strategy for Sacrificial Filaments Enables Biomimetically Structured Perfusable Microvascular Networks with Functional Endothelium Inside 3D Hydrogels
JF  - Advanced Materials
N2  - A facile and flexible approach for the integration of biomimetically branched microvasculature within bulk hydrogels is presented. For this, sacrificial scaffolds of thermoresponsive poly(2-cyclopropyl-2-oxazoline) (PcycloPrOx) are created using melt electrowriting (MEW) in an optimized and predictable way and subsequently placed into a customized bioreactor system, which is then filled with a hydrogel precursor solution. The aqueous environment above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of PcycloPrOx at 25 °C swells the polymer without dissolving it, resulting in fusion of filaments that are deposited onto each other (print-and-fuse approach). Accordingly, an adequate printing pathway design results in generating physiological-like branchings and channel volumes that approximate Murray's law in the geometrical ratio between parent and daughter vessels. After gel formation, a temperature decrease below the LCST produces interconnected microchannels with distinct inlet and outlet regions. Initial placement of the sacrificial scaffolds in the bioreactors in a pre-defined manner directly yields perfusable structures via leakage-free fluid connections in a reproducible one-step procedure. Using this approach, rapid formation of a tight and biologically functional endothelial layer, as assessed not only through fluorescent dye diffusion, but also by tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) stimulation, is obtained within three days.
KW  - hydrogels
KW  - microvasculature
KW  - melt electrowriting
Y1  - 2022
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-318532
VL  - 34
IS  - 28
ER  -