Figure 3.

Bioprinting of vascular structures. (A) Physiology of arteries and veins. Arteries and veins sharing certain features in the multi-layered structures but differ in many other ways. Reproduced with permission from Ref. ⁸², copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons. (B) Construction of macroscale vessels: (i) 3D bioprinted hydrogel; (ii) cross-sectional view; (iii) perspective view of the aorta model. Reproduced with permission from Ref. ⁸³, copyright 2013 Elsevier. (C) Templated bioprinting based on sacrificial agarose fibers: (i) graphic mode of the agarose template fibers for micromolding; schematic representation of bioprinting of agarose template fibers and subsequent formation of microchannels via template micromolding; (ii) bifurcating bioprinted microchannel network in a GelMA hydrogel; and (iii) confocal image of HUVEC-lined microchannel generated by template micromolding. The inset shows a cross-sectional view of the channel. Scale bars: 250 μm. Reproduced with permission from Ref. ⁴⁵, copyright 2014 Royal Society of Chemistry. (D) Schematic views of a heterogeneous bioprinting based on fugitive Pluronics inks: (i) blue filament corresponds to 10T1/2 fibroblast-laden GelMA, red fugitive filament, and green HNDF-laden GelMA ink; (ii) bright-field image of the 3D printed tissue construct, which is overlayed with the green fluorescent channel; (iii) stacked composition of tissue construct. Reproduced with permission from Ref. ⁴⁶, copyright 2014 Wiley-VCH. (E) Sacrificial bioprinting based on sugar struts: (i) schematic overview of an bioprinted interconnected, self-supporting carbohydrate-glass lattice; (ii) stacked composition of 10T1/2 uniformly distributed in the fibrin gel and HUVECs in the vascular space; scale bar: 1 mm; (iii) cross-section image of a representative channel; scale bar: 200 μm. Reproduced with permission from Ref. ⁴⁴, copyright 2012 Nature Publishing Group.