Figure 4.

Swelling and mechanical characteristics of CEW hydrogels fibers. Swelling of (A) gelnor and (B) silk fibroin-based cell-free hydrogel fiber before and after 1 h, 1,, 2, 3, and 7 days incubation in PBS. (C) Representative images of swollen gelnor fibers before and after 1 h and 2 days of swelling. (D,E) Representative loading and unloading curves of CEW gelnor and silk-based cell-free scaffolds measured by nanoindentation. Curves have been averaged over at least three measurements. (F) Effective stiffness of CEW gelnor and silk fibroin-based cell-free scaffolds and (G) comparison with the scaffolds of same composition obtained by conventional extrusion bioprinting. All nanoindentation experiments were performed on scaffolds after 1 day of PBS immersion (equilibrium swelling).