Page 151 - IJB-10-1

International

Journal of Bioprinting

RESEARCH ARTICLE
A 3D-printed micro-perfused culture device with

embedded 3D fibrous scaffold for enhanced
biomimicry

Feng Lin Ng , Zhanhong Cen , Yi-Chin Toh , and Lay Poh Tan *
1
1
4
2,3
1 Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Singapore 636732, Singapore
2 School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, Queensland University of Technology,
Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia
3 Centre for Biomedical Technologies, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, QLD
4059, Australia
4 School of Materials Science & Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798,
Singapore
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: 3D Printing of Advanced Biomedical Devices)

Abstract
Additive manufacturing has rapidly revolutionized the medical sectors since it
is a versatile, cost-effective, assembly free technique with the ability to replicate
geometrically complicated features. Some of the widely reported applications include
the printing of scaffolds, implants, or microfluidic devices. In this study, a 3D-printed
micro-perfused culture (MPC) device embedded with a nanofibrous scaffold was
designed to create an integrated micro-perfused 3D cell culture environment for
living cells. The addition of 3D fibrous scaffold onto the microfluidic chip was to
provide a more physiologically relevant microenvironment for cell culture studies.
*Corresponding author: Stereolithography was adopted in this study as this technique obviates excessive
Lay Poh Tan preassembly and bonding steps, which would otherwise be needed in conventional
(lptan@ntu.edu.sg)
microfluidic fabrication. Huh7.5 hepatocellular carcinoma cells were used as model
Citation: Ng FL, Cen Z, Toh cells for this platform since liver cells experience similar perfused microenvironment.
Y-C, Tan LP. A 3D-printed micro-
perfused culture device with Preliminary cell studies revealed that gene expressions of albumin (ALB) and
embedded 3D fibrous scaffold for cytochrome P450 isoform (CYP3A7) were found to be significantly upregulated on
enhanced biomimicry. Int J Bioprint. the 3D-printed MPC device as compared to the static counterpart. Taken together,
2024;10(1):0226.
doi: 10.36922/ijb.0226 the 3D-printed MPC device is shown to be a physiologically relevant platform for the
maintenance of liver cells. The device and printing technique developed in this study
Received: October 23, 2022
Accepted: December 21, 2022 is highly versatile and tailorable to mimic local in vivo microenvironment needs of
Published Online: July 11, 2023 various tissues, which could be studied in future.
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s).
This is an Open Access article Keywords: Stereolithography; Microfluidics; Porous scaffold; Perfused culture;
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution Human hepatocarcinoma cell
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is
properly cited.
1. Introduction
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with Microfluidics cell culture platform is a promising tool for the discovery of drugs and
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional biological application research since they can reduce experimental time and reagent
1,2
affiliations. volume, hence translating to higher experimental throughput. The conventional means

Volume 10 Issue 1 (2024) 143 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijb.0226