Page 93 - IJB-9-5

International Journal of Bioprinting

REVIEW ARTICLE
The application and prospects of 3D printable

microgel in biomedical science and engineering

Chengcheng Du , Wei Huang *, Yiting Lei *
1,2
1,2
1,2
1 Department of Orthopedic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University,
Chongqing 400016, China
2 Orthopedic Laboratory of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Advances in Bioprinting for Medical Applications)

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting technology is one of the most advanced
techniques currently applied in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine and
has developed rapidly in the past few years. Despite many breakthroughs, there are
still several challenges of 3D bioprinting technology awaiting to be addressed, and
one of them is the urgency of optimizing bioinks (natural or synthetic hydrogel),
which are critical elements in 3D bioprinting, for specific properties. Different from
traditional hydrogels, microgels, which are a new type of bioink, are micron-sized
gels with excellent mechanical and biological properties, which make them great
candidates for applications in 3D bioprinting. Different from the dense and limited
pore size of traditional hydrogels, the pore structure of microgel is adjustable, enabling
better cell loading before 3D bioprinting, and the printed pores are conducive to
the exchange of metabolic substances and cell migration. The “bottom-up” modular
microgel has stronger customizable characteristics, and it can freely adjust its
*Corresponding authors: mechanical properties, such as hardness, toughness, and rheological properties. In
Wei Huang
(huangw511@163.com) this review, we review the application of microgels in the field of biomedicine and
Yiting Lei discuss the future development of microgels in 3D bioprinting.
(leiyit614@163.com)
Citation: Du C, Huang W, Lei Y, Keywords: 3D bioprinting; Microgel; Bioink; Tissue engineering
2023, The application and prospects
of 3D printable microgel in
biomedical science and engineering.
Int J Bioprint, 9(5): 753.
https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.753 1. Introduction
Received: January 18, 2023 Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine address tissue loss issues arising from
Accepted: March 13, 2023
Published Online: May 16, 2023 disease or injury, and three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting has manifested a huge potential
in addressing this issue in recent years [1,2] . 3D bioprinting is a technique conducted by
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s).
This is an Open Access article coding machines with the ideal goal of reproducibly manufacturing high-precision,
distributed under the terms of the biologically active customized tissue or organ structures [3,4] . So far, various 3D bioprinting
Creative Commons Attribution strategies have been developed to achieve this goal, including stereolithography, inkjet
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, bioprinting, laser-assisted bioprinting, extrusion-based bioprinting, and electrospinning-
provided the original work is based bioprinting [5-9] . Different 3D bioprinting strategies have their own advantages and
properly cited. disadvantages . For example, the stereolithographic printing strategy is able to reduce
[10]
Publisher’s Note: Whioce shear forces applied on cells during high-resolution (1 μm) bioprinting, thus ensuring
Publishing remains neutral with cell viability. However, using this strategy, light is difficult to uniformly pass through the
regard to jurisdictional claims in [6,11]
published maps and institutional material, leading to uneven crosslinking .Inkjet printing strategy is relatively low-cost,
affiliations. but it can only produce constructs with a lower cell density, and the printable bioinks that

Volume 9 Issue 5 (2023) 85 https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.753