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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Hybrid polycaprolactone/hydrogel scaffold fabrication

and in-process plasma treatment using PABS

Fengyuan Liu *, Hussein Mishbak 1,2,† , Paulo Bartolo *
1,
1,†,
1 Department of Science and Engineering, School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of
Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
2 Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Thi-Qar, Tai-Qar, Iraq

Abstract: A challenge for tissue engineering is to produce synthetic scaffolds of adequate chemical, physical, and biological cues
effectively. Due to the hydrophobicity of the commonly used synthetic polymers, the printed scaffolds are limited in cell-seeding
and proliferation efficiency. Furthermore, non-uniform cell distribution along the scaffolds with rare cell attachment in the core
region is a common problem. There are no available commercial systems able to produce multi-type material and gradient
scaffolds which could mimic the nature tissues. This paper describes a plasma-assisted bio-extrusion system (PABS) to overcome
the above limitations and capable of producing functional-gradient scaffolds; it comprises pressure-assisted and screw-assisted
extruders and plasma jets. A hybrid scaffold consisting of synthetic biopolymer and natural hybrid hydrogel alginate-gelatin
(Alg-Gel) methacrylate anhydride, and full-layer N plasma modification scaffolds were produced using PABS. Water contact
2
angle and in vitro biological tests confirm that the plasma modification alters the hydrophilicity properties of synthetic polymers
and promotes proliferation of cells, leading to homogeneous cell colonization. The results confirm the printing capability for soft
hard material integration of PABS and suggest that it is promising for producing functional gradient scaffolds of biomaterials.
Keywords: Tissue engineering; hybrid scaffold; PABS; in-process plasma modification; functional gradient scaffold

† Co-first author, contributed equally to this work.
*Correspondence to: Paulo Bartolo, School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL,
UK; Email: paulojorge.bartolo@manchester.ac.uk
Fengyuan Liu, School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK; Email: fengyuan.
liu@manchester.ac.uk
Received: November 27, 2018; Accepted: December 12, 2018; Published Online: December 31, 2018

Citation: Liu F, Mishbak H, Bartolo P. 2019 Hybrid polycaprolactone/hydrogel scaffold fabrication and in-process plasma
treatment using PABS. Int J Bioprint, 5(1): 174. http://dx/doi.org/10.18063/ijb.v5i1.174

1. Introduction strongly on materials and manufacturing processes.
For materials, five types of biomaterials have been
Tissue engineering is promising for organ used: Acellular tissue matrices, synthetic polymers,
replacement which minimizes the side effects of natural polymers, ceramics, and polymer/ceramic
organ transplantation [1,2] . Biomanufacturing is the major composites [4-8] . The most commonly used biomaterial
strategy of tissue engineering aiming at the development for producing scaffolds are synthetic polymers, such
of biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve as polycaprolactone (PCL). Polymeric scaffolds
tissue function, and it requires the combined use of additive play a pivotal role in tissue engineering through cell
manufacturing (AM), biocompatible and biodegradable seeding, proliferation, and new tissue formation in three
materials, cells, and biomolecular signals . dimensions (3D), showing great promise in the research of
[3]
The scaffolds-based strategies (Figure 1) for tissue engineering a variety of tissues. Moreover, scaffolds made
engineering have been most commonly used, depending from collagen are being rapidly replaced with ultraporous
Hybrid polycaprolactone/hydrogel scaffold fabrication and in-process plasma treatment using PABS
© 2019 Liu, et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original
work is properly cited.
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