Abstract
Alginate is the most commonly explored biomaterial used for extrusion printing though it provides limited cell-material interactions. Thus, bioink functionality is improved by blending with poly(amino acid) polymers at low ratios for extrusion bioprinting. Poly-l-lysine (PLL) and poly(glutamic acid) (PGA) affected the shapes of extruded constructs, with best accuracies obtained for an alginate:PGA ratio of 1:5. Both modifications showed increase in cell proliferation and adhesion as printed constructs over pure alginate. Osteoblast cell culture showed PGA scaffolds to effect a dose-dependent increase in alizarin red, demonstrating a facile method to obtain 3 D plotted constructs for bone tissue engineering.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
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Acknowledgments
Authors acknowledge financial assistance received from SERB, Governement of India, through grant no. SB/FTP/ETA/003-2014.