Abstract text (incl. figure legends and references)
Biofabrication, a multidisciplinary field that pursues engineering of biologically relevant constructs meant to replicate the complex architecture of human tissues and organs. A promising approach is the use of 3D (bio) printing, which is an advanced biofabrication technique that uses hydrogels to fabricate 3D biological constructs for tissue engineering applications. Hydrogels have shown wide applicability in the fields of tissue engineering and biofabrication as scaffolding materials for decades. Since they are characterized by their high-water retention ability, resembling the extracellular matrix (ECM) of various tissues. However, hydrogels alone do not resemble or mimic the complexity of human tissue ECM, which is composed of fibrous proteins such as collagen and elastin and cell containing ground-like (gel-like) substances such as proteoglycans (PGs) and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs).
Wide range of approaches and techniques have been proposed to combine 3D (bio) printing of hydrogels or hydrogel systems with nanofiber fabrication techniques such as electrospinning and melt electrowriting (MEW) for the fabrication of hydrogel-fiber constructs. Each of these fiber-spinning methods possess own drawbacks such as poor control of fiber deposition (electrospinning), slowness (melt electrowriting) and need of use of high voltage and conductive substrates (both electrospinning and melt electrowriting).
Herein, a novel biofabrication technique integrating together 3D (bio) printing and fiber spinning based on mechanical pulling to fabricate a multilayered construct of cells encapsulated hydrogel system with highly aligned nanofibers will be presented. In particular, the effect of properties of fiber-forming polymers and rheological properties of bioinks on ability of cells to interact with fiber and move along them will be discussed.