Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2018 Apr 6:22:11.
doi: 10.1186/s40824-018-0122-1. eCollection 2018.

Recent trends in bioinks for 3D printing

Janarthanan Gopinathan  1   2 , Insup Noh  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Recent trends in bioinks for 3D printing

Janarthanan Gopinathan et al. Biomater Res. .

Abstract

Background: The worldwide demand for the organ replacement or tissue regeneration is increasing steadily. The advancements in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine have made it possible to regenerate such damaged organs or tissues into functional organ or tissue with the help of 3D bioprinting. The main component of the 3D bioprinting is the bioink, which is crucial for the development of functional organs or tissue structures. The bioinks used in 3D printing technology require so many properties which are vital and need to be considered during the selection. Combination of different methods and enhancements in properties are required to develop more successful bioinks for the 3D printing of organs or tissue structures.

Main body: This review consists of the recent state-of-art of polymer-based bioinks used in 3D printing for applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The subsection projects the basic requirements for the selection of successful bioinks for 3D printing and developing 3D tissues or organ structures using combinations of bioinks such as cells, biomedical polymers and biosignals. Different bioink materials and their properties related to the biocompatibility, printability, mechanical properties, which are recently reported for 3D printing are discussed in detail.

Conclusion: Many bioinks formulations have been reported from cell-biomaterials based bioinks to cell-based bioinks such as cell aggregates and tissue spheroids for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. Interestingly, more tunable bioinks, which are biocompatible for live cells, printable and mechanically stable after printing are emerging with the help of functional polymeric biomaterials, their modifications and blending of cells and hydrogels. These approaches show the immense potential of these bioinks to produce more complex tissue/organ structures using 3D bioprinting in the future.

Keywords: 3D printing; Bioink; Biomaterials; Regenerative medicine; Tissue engineering.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Not applicable.Not applicable.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Important requirements for selecting a bioink for 3D printing in biomaterial aspects
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Murphy SV, Atala A. 3D bioprinting of tissues and organs. Nature Biotech. 2014;32(8):773–785. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2958. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gu BK, Choi DJ, Park SJ, Kim MS, Kang CM, Kim CH. 3-dimensional bioprinting for tissue engineering applications. Biomater. Res. 2016;20(1):12. doi: 10.1186/s40824-016-0058-2. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ahn HJ, Khalmuratova R, Park SA, Chung EJ, Shin HW, Kwon SK. Serial analysis of tracheal restenosis after 3D-printed scaffold implantation: recruited inflammatory cells and associated tissue changes. Tissue Eng Regen Med. 14(5):631–9. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kaushik SN, Kim B, Walma A, Choi SC, Wu H, Mao JJ, Jun HW, Cheon K. Biomimetic microenvironments for regenerative endodontics. Biomater Res. 2016;20:14. doi: 10.1186/s40824-016-0061-7. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jakus AE, Rutz AL, Shah RM. Advancing the field of 3D biomaterial printing. Biomed Mater. 2016;11:014102. doi: 10.1088/1748-6041/11/1/014102. - DOI - PubMed