Recent advances in 3D bioprinting of vascularized tissues

3D bioprinting is a technology that combines computing science, biology and material engineering. It has been extensively explored to fabricate 3D vascularized constructs for tissue engineering. This scalable, reproducible and highly precise fabrication technology offers great potential to achieve vascularization in printed tissues, which is an important milestone towards organ printing in the foreseeable future. A successful vascularized tissue integrates a range of hierarchical, perfusable channels within the mechanically supportive biomaterials. This review summarises the recent advances in the 3D bioprinting of vascularized tissues. Firstly, the common biomaterials used as bioinks for 3D bioprinting are introduced. While natural polymers are more suitable to mimic extracellular matrix resulting in effective cell growth, synthetic polymers offer tailorable mechanical properties and printability. Afterwards, the main 3D bioprinting techniques and their most recent practical applications in fabricating perfusable vascular networks are described. Furthermore, the future trends and prospects are also discussed. (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

3D bioprinting technology combines computing science, biology, and material engineering, and has great potential in fabricating vascularized constructs for tissue engineering. This review summarizes recent advances in 3D bioprinting of vascularized tissues, including the selection of biomaterials and various 3D printing techniques and applications.