3D Printable Soy/Silk Hybrid Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering Applications
Pramod Dorishetty, Rajkamal Balu, Amy Gelmi, Jitendra Mata, Naba K. Dutta, Namita Roy Choudhury
Abstract
(near printing shear). The kinetics of sol-gel transition during the photo-cross-linking reaction and the micromechanical properties of fabricated hydrogels were investigated using photorheology and atomic force microscopy, where the hybrid hydrogels exhibited tunable storage and Young's moduli in the range of 13-29 and 214-811 kPa, respectively. The cross-link density and printing accuracy of hybrid hydrogels and inks were observed to increase with the increase in SF content. The 3D printed hybrid hydrogels exhibited a micropore size larger than that of solution casted hydrogels; where the 3D printed 1:3 (SPI/SF) hybrid hydrogel showed a pore size about 7.6 times higher than that of the casted hydrogel. Moreover, the fabricated hybrid hydrogels exhibit good mouse fibroblast cell attachment, viability, and proliferation, demonstrating their potential for tissue engineering applications.