Cytocompatibility testing of hydrogels toward bioprinting of mesenchymal stem cells

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) represent a very attractive cell source for tissue engineering applications aiming at the generation of artificial bone substitutes. The use of three-dimensional bioprinting technologies has the potential to improve the classical tissue engineering approach because bioprinting will allow the generation of hydrogel scaffolds with high spatial control of MSC allocation within the bioprinted construct. In this study, we have performed direct comparisons between commercially available hydrogels in the context of their cytocompatibility toward MSCs and their physicochemical parameters with the aim to identify the most suitable hydrogel for drop-on-demand (DoD) printing of MSCs. In this context, we examined matrigel, fibrin, collagen, gelatin, and gelatin/alginate at various hydrogel concentrations. Matrigel, fibrin, collagen, and gelatin were able to support cell viability, but the latter showed a limited potential to promote MSC proliferation. We concentrated our study on fibrin and collagen hydrogels and investigated the effect of hydroxyapatite (HA) inclusion. The inclusion of HA enhanced proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of MSCs and prevented degradation of fibrin in vitro. According to viscosity and storage moduli measurements, HA-blends displayed physicochemical characteristics suitable for DoD printing. In bioprinting experiments, we confirmed that fibrin and collagen and their respective HA-blends represent excellent hydrogels for DoD-based printing as evidenced by high survival rates of printed MSCs. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 105A: 3231-3241, 2017.