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Printing support hydrogels for creating vascular-like structures in stacked cell sheets

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Abstract

Vascular structures are essential for the survival of thick artificial three-dimensional (3D) tissues. However, it is difficult to create high-cell-density artificial tissue with vascular structures of a few hundred micrometers in diameter. Bioprinting technology can create artificial 3D tissues with vascular structures of a few hundred micrometers in diameter, but the cell density of bio-printed artificial 3D tissues is low. On the other hand, cell sheet technology can create high-cell-density artificial 3D tissues by stacking, but it is not possible to set small vascular structures at any place. In this study, we successfully demonstrated high-cell-density artificial 3D tissues with vascular-like structures by stacking cell sheets combined with bioprinting technology.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (no. 18K18838) and Japan Science and Technology Agency (no. JPMJMI18CD).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Majors in Modern Mechanical Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Ryu-ichiro Tanaka

  2. Department of Integrative Bioscience and Biomedical Engineering, TWIns, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Katsuhisa Sakaguchi

  3. Department of Modern Mechanical Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Shinjiro Umezu

Authors
  1. Ryu-ichiro Tanaka
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  2. Katsuhisa Sakaguchi
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  3. Shinjiro Umezu
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Correspondence to Shinjiro Umezu.

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This work was presented in part at the International Symposium on Biocomplexity (ISBC) 2019 Summer Symposium (Tokyo, August 9, 2019).

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Tanaka, Ri., Sakaguchi, K. & Umezu, S. Printing support hydrogels for creating vascular-like structures in stacked cell sheets. Artif Life Robotics 25, 199–203 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-020-00605-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-020-00605-7

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