Development of a Decellularized Extracellular Matrix based Bio-ink Having an Enhanced 3D Printability

Bio-inks should have proper mechanical properties for precise patterning and cytocompatibility for developing artificial tissues or organs. One of the methods for getting good biological properties is mimicking of biochemical compositions of target tissue. In this aspect, decellularization technique is widely applied to produce a bio-ink. Until now, a decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM) hydrogel form digested by pepsin has been usually applied for bioprinting. Mechanical properties of dECM hydrogel affecting printing performance are affected by various factors. Thus it is hard to control the mechanical properties. Here, we introduce novel method to prepare dECM bio-ink for high printability. A dECM powder was prepared and mixed with a gelatin based bio-ink to be applied to a bioprinting process. Cytocompatibility and patterning tests were conducted to evaluate the performance of developed bio-ink. The results showed that the dECM powder based bio-ink has similar cytocompatibility with traditional dECM hydrogels in terms of the cell viability and proliferation. Furthermore, two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) patterning results showed that our bio-ink has enhanced printability compared to traditional dECM hydrogels. These results demonstrate that our method can be applied to develop various types of dECM based bio-ink having good biocompatibility and printability