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Recent Advances in 3D Bioprinted Tumor Microenvironment

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Abstract

Tumors in vivo exist in a microenvironment, so-called tumor microenvironment (TME), which includes peripheral blood vessels, immune cells, fibroblasts, signalling molecules and extracellular matrix. In recent years, considerable efforts have been focused on developing bioprinting methods because 3D bioprinting can better recapitulate TMEs by accurately printing different types of TME cells in spatially localised regions. In this review, we first introduce TME and 3D bioprinting methods and later discuss bioprinted TMEs as tumor equivalents for understanding tumor biology as well as testing drug efficacy.

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Acknowledgements

This work was equally supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea grants (2018R1A2B2002066, 2016M3A9B 4917320) and Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) (Grant no. 2019-0-00047) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) in Korea.

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  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, Korea

    Jinseung Bae, Seogkyu Han & Sungsu Park

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  1. Jinseung Bae
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Correspondence to Sungsu Park.

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Bae, J., Han, S. & Park, S. Recent Advances in 3D Bioprinted Tumor Microenvironment. BioChip J 14, 137–147 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13206-020-4201-8

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