3D bioprinting of a urethra scaffold using a polyurethane and decellularized ECM-derived hydrogel matrix

• Main Authors: Gonzales, Neal Kervin V., Salvador, Alpha Joy D., Dagmil, Ludivie Faith Q.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2024
• Subjects: Bioprinting; Tissue engineering; Chemical Engineering; Engineering; Membrane Science
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdb_chemeng/34; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etdb_chemeng/article/1032/viewcontent/3D_Bioprinting_of_a_Urethra_Scaffold_Using_a_Polyurethane_and_Dec_copy.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Urethral injuries and diseases tend to happen through trauma and natural processes that are usually treated with surgery. However, these reconstructions often do not provide lasting comfort as it often leads to more health complications. In this study, the fabrication of scaffolds utilized polyurethane (PU) pellets and decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM) of porcine urethra as bioink. This combination of synthetic and biological materials is ideal as they each have inherent properties that enables the bioink, and therefore the scaffolds, to exhibit good printability and crosslinking ability, and mechanical properties without sacrificing other factors such as affordability and biocompatibility. Pure PU and PU-dECM blends with ratios of 90:10, 85:15, and 80:20 was 3D printed using a bioprinter. The bioinks were first tested for their viscosity to check its printability. The scaffolds were then subjected to chemical crosslinking post-printing by submersion in a 1 v/v% glutaraldehyde (GA)-water solution for 24h before being evaluated on their crosslinking and swelling ability, ultimate tensile strength, Young’s modulus, and surface morphology. The viscosity results presented a rheopectic behavior for all prepared PU solutions and a printability range between 1295 cP to 3830 cP was established. The swelling test results showed that a decrease in the PU concentration resulted in an increase in swelling ratio. The 80:20 printed samples had the highest average at 85.76, followed by 85:15 at 78.82, then 90:10 at 77.70, and lastly the pure PU at 61.75 after 30 min. Similarly, the Young’s modulus is directly proportional to the dECM concentration with the most having the highest – 80:20 at 1.54 MPa, 85:15 at 1.06 MPa, 90:10 at 1.01 MPa, and pure PU at 0.72 MPa. As for the ultimate tensile strength, the 85:15 PU-dECM concentration resulted to the highest value at 7.50 MPa followed by the 90:10 at 7.16 MPa, 80:20 at 5.34 MPa, and the pure PU at 4.74 MPa. The results agreed with the surface morphology micrographs where the pores, bumps, and peaks were evaluated using the ImageJ software. From these, the 80:20 PU-dECM sample was deduced to be the best for 3D bioprinting of urethral scaffolds due to its desirable morphological, biological, and mechanical properties.