Alginate-poly(amino acid) extrusion printed scaffolds for tissue engineering applications

Alginate is the most commonly explored biomaterial used for extrusion printing though it provides limited cell-material interactions. Thus, bioink functionality is improved by blending with poly(amino acid) polymers at low ratios for extrusion bioprinting. Poly-l-lysine (PLL) and poly(glutamic acid) (PGA) affected the shapes of extruded constructs, with best accuracies obtained for an alginate:PGA ratio of 1:5. Both modifications showed increase in cell proliferation and adhesion as printed constructs over pure alginate. Osteoblast cell culture showed PGA scaffolds to effect a dose-dependent increase in alizarin red, demonstrating a facile method to obtain 3 D plotted constructs for bone tissue engineering.