3D bioprinted composite materials perfectly repair bone and soft tissue

Science and Technology Daily, Hefei, August 26 (reporter Wu Changfeng) Reporter 26 from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences learned that the high magnetic field center Wang Junfeng researcher team developed a new type of 3D bioprinting composite material for tissue engineering repair field, and made a series of research progress. The relevant results have been published in the international journals "Materials and Design" and "International Journal of Biomacromolecules".

Bioboron-based glass (BBG) is a bioactive material, which has been widely used in bone tissue repair and regenerative medicine, and has shown great potential in 3D bioprinting materials. In bone tissue repair, the research team used the unique physical and chemical properties of BBG, combined with biological scaffold units to design customized composite materials containing different BBG content, and 3D printed high-quality bone defect repair scaffolds through selective laser sintering technology. The experimental results showed that the addition of BBG significantly improved the overall performance of the scaffold, including suitable porosity, mechanical strength, hydrophilicity, in vitro degradation rate, cytocompatibility, osteogenic differentiation ability, and biological properties of osteogenesis and angiogenesis in vivo.

In soft tissue repair, based on the in-depth study of the special internal and external biomineralization properties of BBG, the team introduced BBG particles into sodium alginate to construct a high-precision 3D printed BBG-SA bioink. Studies have shown that BBG combined with sodium alginate can effectively induce degradation and release calcium ions, and initiate the internal gelation process of sodium alginate. At the same time, as a filler, BBG also solves the problem of uneven gelation and significant shrinkage caused by external crosslinking. Through extrusion 3D printing technology, the team designed 3D printed hydrogel composite scaffolds with different BBG content, which showed the best printability, printing accuracy and molding shrinkage, demonstrating the application potential in tissue engineering 3D bioprinting.

The study also showed that these new bioinks also exhibited excellent biocompatibility, enhanced the adhesion and proliferation of MC3T3-E1 cells on the scaffold surface, and promoted the expression of soft tissue related genes and proteins.