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Cellulose Nanofibril Hydrogel Tubes as Sacrificial Templates for Freestanding Tubular Cell Constructs
journal contribution
posted on 2016-01-26, 00:00 authored by Jose Guillermo Torres-Rendon, Marius Köpf, David Gehlen, Andreas Blaeser, Horst Fischer, Laura De Laporte, Andreas WaltherThe
merging of defined nanoscale building blocks with advanced
additive manufacturing techniques is of eminent importance for the
preparation of multiscale and highly functional materials with de novo designed hierarchical architectures. Here, we demonstrate
that hydrogels of cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) can be processed into
complex shapes, and used as a sacrificial template to prepare freestanding
cell constructs. We showcase our approach for the fabrication of hollow
fibers using a controlled extrusion through a circular die into a
coagulation bath. The dimensions of the hollow fibers are tunable,
and the final tubes combine the nanofibrillar porosity of the CNF
hydrogel with a submillimeter wall thickness and centimeter-scale
length provided by the additive manufacturing technique. We demonstrate
that covalent and supramolecular cross-linking of the CNFs can be
used to tailor the mechanical properties of the hydrogel tubes within
1 order of magnitude and in an attractive range for the mechanosensation
of cells. The resulting tubes are highly biocompatible and allow for
the growth of mouse fibroblasts into confluent cell layers in their
inner lumen. A detailed screening of several cellulases enables degradation
of the scaffolding, temporary CNF hydrogel tube in a quick and highly
cell-friendly way, and allows the isolation of coherent cell tubes.
We foresee that the growing capabilities of hydrogel printing techniques
in combination with the attractive features of CNFssustainable,
globally abundant, biocompatible and enzymatically degradablewill
allow making plant-based biomaterials with hierarchical structures
and on-demand degradation useful, for instance, to engineer complex
tissue structures to replace animal models, and for implants.
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CNF hydrogel tubecoagulation bathCNF hydrogelFreestanding Tubular Cell ConstructsTheanimal modelsSacrificial Templateshydrogel printing techniquesfreestanding cellsubmillimeter wall thicknessCellulose Nanofibril Hydrogel Tubescellulose nanofibrilscell tubeshydrogel tubestissue structuresnanoscale building blocksadditive manufacturing techniquebiocompatiblemouse fibroblastsdegradationcell layersnanofibrillar porosityadditive manufacturing techniques1 order
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