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EDITORIAL

Bioprinting of 3D Functional Tissue Constructs

Jiankang He *, Mao Mao , Xiao Li , Chee Kai Chua 3
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1 State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
2 NMPA Key Laboratory for Research and Evaluation of Additive Manufacturing Medical Devices, Xi’an Jiaotong
University, Xi’an 710049, China
3 Engineering Product Development Pillar, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore 487372, Singapore
*Correspondence to: Jiankang He, State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049,
China; jiankanghe@mail.xjtu.edu.cn
Citation: He, J,Mao M, Li X, et al., 2021, Bioprinting of 3D Functional Tissue Constructs. Int J Bioprint. 7(3):395.
http://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.v7i3.395

In recent years, bioprinting has attracted growing research printing bone and cartilage constructs . In addition,
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interest due to its unique capability in fabricating complex Chen et al. developed an elastic and stretchable bioink
tissue-specific architectures and precisely positioning by combining a polyacrylamide covalent network with a
living cells in a controllable and reproducible manner. gelatin colloidal network, which was successfully used
Bioprinting involves multiple disciplines such as for high-precision fabrication of ionic skins .
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biomaterials, mechanical engineering, life science, and Vascular-like networks can be bioprinted to support
medicine. It has become a powerful tool to generate 3D the growth of 3D tissue constructs. Mao et al. presented
living tissue constructs that replicate the physiological a novel coaxial electrohydrodynamic bioprinting strategy
environments, sustain long-term culture, and function to generate perfusable core-sheath hydrogel filaments,
as native tissues. Extensive research efforts have been which can be assembled into 3D constructs with a
made to print large and functional tissue constructs with thickness of more than 3 mm . Their success in printing
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biomimetic vascular networks and micro/nanoscale the thick 3D pre-vascularized cardiac constructs shows
architectures similar to native organs. This special issue great potential to engineer living tissues with complex
is dedicated to summarizing the most recent advances, vascular structures. In a review article, Liu et al. compared
strategies, and applications of bioprinting techniques bioprinting and bioassembling methods for engineering
ranging from the development of bioinks to engineering microvessels from the perspectives of fabrication
of 3D tissue constructs. Four original research articles efficiency, the sizes of the engineered microvessels,
and four review articles are included in this special and the ability to construct complex 3D microvascular
issue. networks .
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A key aspect of bioprinting is bioinks, which should Bioprinting can be applied to generate various
have optimal rheological and biological properties for in vitro biological models with complex structural features
successful printing as well as maintaining cell viability and and tissue-specific functions. With respect to organoids
growth capability. In this special issue, Li et al. proposed as emerging biological models, Ren et al. examined
a quantitative thermal model to predict the printability existing bioprinting methods and bioinks and envisioned
and printing accuracy of alginate–gelatin composite possible directions for future organoid bioprinting .
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bioinks . Photo-crosslinkable bioinks, which can respond Similarly, Yang et al. reviewed recent advances regarding
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to light and induce structural or morphological transition, the fabrication methods and applications of heart-on-a-
were considered as a promising bioink candidate for chip, where various bioprinting techniques underpin the
bioprinting, due to their high biocompatibility, ease construction of cardiac microtissues . In an original
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of fabrication, as well as controllable mechanical, and research article, Pei et al. reported an integrated bioprinter
degradation properties. A review article by Mei et al. that enabled the fabrication of layered gradient pore
summarized the commonly used photo-crosslinkable structures of brain-like tissues while maintained a high
hydrogels and discusses their potential applications for cell viability .
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© 2021 He, et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons. org/
licenses/by/4.0/), permitting distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is cited.
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