Advanced cell-adaptable hydrogels for bioprinting.

Abstract

Bioprinting provides a promising tool to customize human tissues for medicine. Currently, it is expected to generate a tissue from the printed tissue construct that is consisted of biomaterials and cells. One of the major challenges is the lack of advanced printable biomaterials that allows the tissue constructs to efficiently mature into a real tissue. For the bioprinting, the commonly used biomaterials are "dead", while the cells are living. It is important to develop cell-adaptable materials that can dynamically provide space for the seeded cells to grow and migrate. In this work, we overview current cell-adaptable hydrogels for bioprinting tissue constructs including <i>in vivo</i> implants and <i>in vitro</i> disease models. Also, we discuss the key considerations for future clinical translation of bioprinting using cell-adaptable hydrogels. This work would help us to understand the opportunities and challenges of bioprinting using cell-adaptable hydrogels.