Printing cell embedded sacrificial strategy for microvasculature using degradable DNA biolubricant

Shi, Jiezhong and Wan, Yifei and Jia, Haoyang and Skeldon, Gregor and Cornelissen, Dirk Jan and Wesencraft, Katrina and Wu, Junxi and McConnell, Gail and Chen, Quan and Liu, Dongsheng and Shu, Wenmiao (2024) Printing cell embedded sacrificial strategy for microvasculature using degradable DNA biolubricant. Angewandte Chemie International Edition. e202417510. ISSN 1521-3773 (In Press) (https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202417510)

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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.

ORCID iDs

Shi, Jiezhong, Wan, Yifei, Jia, Haoyang, Skeldon, Gregor, Cornelissen, Dirk Jan, Wesencraft, Katrina, Wu, Junxi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1334-887X, McConnell, Gail ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7213-0686, Chen, Quan, Liu, Dongsheng and Shu, Wenmiao ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1220-361X;
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