Photocurable chitosan as bioink for cellularized therapies towards personalized scaffold architecture

Recent progresses in tissue engineering are directed towards the development of technologies able to provide personalized scaffolds recreating the defect shape in a patient specific manner. To achieve this ambitious goal, 3D bioprinting can be combined with a suitable bioink, able to create a physiological milieu for cell growth. In this work, a novel chitosan-based hydrogel was developed combining photocrosslinking and thermo-sensitive properties. Commercial chitosan (CS) was first methacrylated and then mixed with β-glycerol phosphate salt (β-GP) to impart a thermally induced phase transition. The absence of cytotoxic degradation products and the excellent biocompatibility of the developed hydrogel was confirmed through in vitro tests using different cell lines (NIH/3T3, Saos-2, SH-SY5Y). Cellularized 3D structures were obtained though 3D bioprinting technologies confirming the processability of the developed hydrogels and its unique biological properties.