applsci-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Biomaterials and Scaffolds in Tissue Engineering Applications and Cancer Therapies 2018

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Science and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2018) | Viewed by 23772

Special Issue Editor


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Millions of people suffer from tissue/organ injuries, such as peripheral nerve injuries and heart attacks. Tissue/organ transplantation is the gold standard to treat some of these types of injuries, but is severely restricted as an option due to the limited availability of donor tissues/organs. Tissue engineering (TE) is an emerging field that aims to produce tissue/organ substitutes or scaffolds that are made from biomaterials, ultimately providing a permanent solution and thus improving upon current treatment approaches. Considerable and encouraging progress has been making in the development of biomaterials and scaffolds in various TE applications, as well as in cancer therapies by targeting cancer stem cells. This Special Issue aims at providing a platform to survey and report the recent development and advance in this field, which may include, but is not limited to, biomaterials, design and fabrication of scaffolds, 3D printing, modeling scaffolds, characterization of biomaterials and/or scaffolds in vitro and/or in vivo, scaffold-based strategies for TE applications, and/or scaffold-based strategies for cancer therapies.

This Special Issue also publishes the selected papers from Bioprinting & 3D-Printing in the Life Sciences EU 2018, held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 7-8 June 2018.

Prof. Dr. Daniel X.B. Chen
Guest Editor

Keywords

  • biomaterials
  • cancer therapy
  • cell growth
  • characterization
  • design
  • fabrication
  • in vitro; in vivo
  • modeling
  • stem cells
  • tissue engineering
  • tissue regeneration
  • tissue scaffolds
  • 3D printing

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (4 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

13 pages, 4771 KiB  
Article
3D Bioprinting Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Neural Tissues Using a Novel Lab-on-a-Printer Technology
by Laura De la Vega, Diego A. Rosas Gómez, Emily Abelseth, Laila Abelseth, Victor Allisson da Silva and Stephanie M. Willerth
Appl. Sci. 2018, 8(12), 2414; https://doi.org/10.3390/app8122414 - 28 Nov 2018
Cited by 59 | Viewed by 11417
Abstract
Most neurological diseases and disorders lack true cures, including spinal cord injury (SCI). Accordingly, current treatments only alleviate the symptoms of these neurological diseases and disorders. Engineered neural tissues derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) can serve as powerful tools to [...] Read more.
Most neurological diseases and disorders lack true cures, including spinal cord injury (SCI). Accordingly, current treatments only alleviate the symptoms of these neurological diseases and disorders. Engineered neural tissues derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) can serve as powerful tools to identify drug targets for treating such diseases and disorders. In this work, we demonstrate how hiPSC-derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) can be bioprinted into defined structures using Aspect Biosystems’ novel RX1 bioprinter in combination with our unique fibrin-based bioink in rapid fashion as it takes under 5 min to print four tissues. This printing process preserves high levels of cell viability (>81%) and their differentiation capacity in comparison to less sophisticated bioprinting methods. These bioprinted neural tissues expressed the neuronal marker, βT-III (45 ± 20.9%), after 15 days of culture and markers associated with spinal cord (SC) motor neurons (MNs), such as Olig2 (68.8 ± 6.9%), and HB9 (99.6 ± 0.4%) as indicated by flow cytometry. The bioprinted neural tissues expressed the mature MN marker, ChaT, after 30 days of culture as indicated by immunocytochemistry. In conclusion, we have presented a novel method for high throughput production of mature hiPSC-derived neural tissues with defined structures that resemble those found in the SC. Full article
Show Figures

Graphical abstract

15 pages, 5550 KiB  
Article
Lanthanum-Containing Magnesium Alloy with Antitumor Function Based on Increased Reactive Oxygen Species
by Cijun Shuai, Long Liu, Youwen Yang, Chengde Gao, Mingchun Zhao, Lu Yi and Shuping Peng
Appl. Sci. 2018, 8(11), 2109; https://doi.org/10.3390/app8112109 - 1 Nov 2018
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 2673
Abstract
Developing antitumor implants is of great significance to repair tumor-induced bone defects and simultaneously prevent bone tumor recurrence. The tumor cells, compared to normal cells, have a high reactive oxygen species level. They are vulnerable to oxidative insults under increased intrinsic oxidative stress. [...] Read more.
Developing antitumor implants is of great significance to repair tumor-induced bone defects and simultaneously prevent bone tumor recurrence. The tumor cells, compared to normal cells, have a high reactive oxygen species level. They are vulnerable to oxidative insults under increased intrinsic oxidative stress. The lanthanum (La) ion with high phospholipid binding ability can open the mitochondrial permeability transition pore, which blocks the electron transport chain in the mitochondria, and consequently increases reactive oxygen species level. In this study, La was alloyed to Mg-6Zn-0.5Zr (ZK60) through selective laser melting technology. The results indicated that the mitochondrial membrane potential dropped whilst the reactive oxygen species increased as the La content increased. ZK60-1.0La revealed a high cell inhibition rate of 61.9% for bone tumor cell and high cell viability of 91.9% for normal cells, indicating that the alloy could induce bone tumor cell death, as well as exhibit good biocompatibility for normal cell. In addition, its degradation rate 1.23 mm/year was lower than that of ZK60 alloy 2.13 mm/year, which was mainly attributed to the grain refinement. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 3308 KiB  
Article
Modeling of the Mechanical Behavior of 3D Bioplotted Scaffolds Considering the Penetration in Interlocked Strands
by Saman Naghieh, M. D. Sarker, Mohammad Reza Karamooz-Ravari, Adam D. McInnes and Xiongbiao Chen
Appl. Sci. 2018, 8(9), 1422; https://doi.org/10.3390/app8091422 - 21 Aug 2018
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 4705
Abstract
Three-dimensional (3D) bioplotting has been widely used to print hydrogel scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. One issue involved in 3D bioplotting is to achieve the scaffold structure with the desired mechanical properties. To overcome this issue, various numerical methods have been developed to [...] Read more.
Three-dimensional (3D) bioplotting has been widely used to print hydrogel scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. One issue involved in 3D bioplotting is to achieve the scaffold structure with the desired mechanical properties. To overcome this issue, various numerical methods have been developed to predict the mechanical properties of scaffolds, but limited by the imperfect representation of one key feature of scaffolds fabricated by 3D bioplotting, i.e., the penetration or fusion of strands in one layer into the previous layer. This paper presents our study on the development of a novel numerical model to predict the elastic modulus (one important index of mechanical properties) of 3D bioplotted scaffolds considering the aforementioned strand penetration. For this, the finite element method was used for the model development, while medium-viscosity alginate was selected for scaffold fabrication by the 3D bioplotting technique. The elastic modulus of the bioplotted scaffolds was characterized using mechanical testing and results were compared with those predicted from the developed model, demonstrating a strong congruity between them. Once validated, the developed model was also used to investigate the effect of other geometrical features on the mechanical behavior of bioplotted scaffolds. Our results show that the penetration, pore size, and number of printed layers have significant effects on the elastic modulus of bioplotted scaffolds; and also suggest that the developed model can be used as a powerful tool to modulate the mechanical behavior of bioplotted scaffolds. Full article
Show Figures

Graphical abstract

13 pages, 6021 KiB  
Article
Electrospun Porous PDLLA Fiber Membrane Coated with nHA
by Linhui Qiang, Cong Zhang, Feng Qu, Xiaonan Wu and Hongyan Wang
Appl. Sci. 2018, 8(5), 831; https://doi.org/10.3390/app8050831 - 21 May 2018
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3929
Abstract
Porous poly- D, L-lactic acid (PDLLA) electrospinning fiber membrane was prepared, and nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) was adsorbed and wrapped into it during the unique shrinking process of the PDLLA fiber membrane to fabricate the PDLLA/nHA composite membrane scaffold for tissue engineering. Compare with the [...] Read more.
Porous poly- D, L-lactic acid (PDLLA) electrospinning fiber membrane was prepared, and nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) was adsorbed and wrapped into it during the unique shrinking process of the PDLLA fiber membrane to fabricate the PDLLA/nHA composite membrane scaffold for tissue engineering. Compare with the composite fibers prepared by blend electrospinning, most of nHA particles are observed to distribute on the surface of new type composite fibers, which could significantly improve the water wettability and induce the cellular adherence. FTIR analysis indicated that the PDLLA/nHA composite fibrous membrane was formed by physical adsorption. The combination was probed by scanning electron microscope, thermo-gravimetric, water contact angle and mechanical property analysis. It was proved that the nHA particles’ content and distribution, surface wettability, modulus and tensile strength of PDLLA/nHA composite fibrous membrane were influenced by the concentration of nHA dispersion and pores on the PDLLA fiber surface. The 10.6 wt % PDLLA/nHA composite fibrous membrane exhibits a more balanced tensile strength (3.28 MPa) and surface wettability (with a water contact angle of 0°) of the composite mats. Scanning electron microscope and confocal laser scanning microscopy images of chondrocyte proliferation further showed that the composite scaffold is non-toxic. The adherence and proliferation of chondrocytes on the 10.6 wt % PDLLA/nHA fibrous membrane was significantly improved, compared with PDLLA mat. The 10.6 wt % PDLLA/nHA composite fibrous membrane has potential application value as scaffold material in tissue engineering. Full article
Show Figures

Graphical abstract

Back to TopTop