Page 180 - IJB-10-3

International

Journal of Bioprinting

REVIEW ARTICLE
Current advances of 3D-bioprinted microfluidic

models with hydrogel bioinks and their
applications in drug screening

Jianing Li , Na Li , Bo Liu , Shen Li *, and Hangyu Zhang *
1,2
1,2
2,3
1
1,2
1 School of Biomedical Engineering, Liaoning Key Lab of Integrated Circuit and Biomedical Electronic
System, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning, China
2 Faculty of Medicine, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning, China
3 Department of Endocrinology, Central Hospital of Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning,
China
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Novel Hydrogels/Bioinks Formulations Prepared from Naturally
Derived Components for 3D Bioprinting)

Abstract

Microenvironments of tumor and organ models dictate the accuracy of drug
screening results. The advancement of technologies and hydrogel bioinks has
significantly increased the representation of tumor and organs models in the armada
of drug testing tools. Hydrogel bioinks, characterized by their high water content and
efficient substance transport, facilitate the reconstruction of human tissues by acting
as functional carriers for cells. The molding and cell culture function of hydrogels
are preserved and optimized through rational engineering techniques. Furthermore,
*Corresponding authors: previous studies have often focused on fabrication of supporting constructs by
Hangyu Zhang
(hangyuz@dlut.edu.cn) means of three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting or microfluidic technology for dynamic
Shen Li cultures. Nevertheless, the combination of bioprinting and microfluidic technologies
(lishen2010@dlut.edu.cn) offers advantages in terms of dynamic response and automation, which enable the
creation of artificial tumor or organ models to represent actual microenvironments.
Citation: Li J, Li N, Liu B, Li S,
Zhang H. Current advances of In this review, we discuss the components and physical features of tumor
3D-bioprinted microfluidic models microenvironments (TMEs), most of which have been reproduced in artificial models
with hydrogel bioinks and their widely by different researchers. We also classify bioink-simulating extracellular
applications in drug screening.
Int J Bioprint. 2024;10(3):1951. matrix (ECM) in TMEs, explain their crosslinking principles, and introduce their
doi: 10.36922/ijb.1951 manifestations, including artificial disease or organ models in tissue engineering
Received: September 29, 2023 application. Technologies, such as 3D bioprinting and microfluidic technology, used
Accepted: December 6, 2023 to create these models are also outlined. At last, we summarize disease models and
Published Online: March 4, 2024 organ microarchitectures fabricated by these two technologies and offer application
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s). prospects of these models in the realm of precision medicine.
This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution Keywords: 3D bioprinting; Bioinks; Tissue engineering; Drug screening; Microfluidic
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 The diagnosis and treatment of emerging, highly infective, and fatal diseases continue
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional to pose a global challenge in the clinical scene. Cancer is a highly representative disease
affiliations. due to the complexity of its treatment and the rather comprehensive delineation

Volume 10 Issue 3 (2024) 172 doi: 10.36922/ijb.1951