3D bioprinted hyaluronic acid-based cell-laden scaffold for brain microenvironment simulation

Treatments for lesions in central nervous system (CNS) are always faced with challenges due to the anatomical and physiological particularity of the CNS despite the fact that several achievements have been made in early diagnosis and precision medicine to improve the survival and quality of life of patients with brain tumors in recent years. Understanding the complexity as well as role of the microenvironment of brain tumors may suggest a better revealing of the molecular mechanism of brain tumors and new therapeutic directions, which requires an accurate recapitulation of the complex microenvironment of human brain in vitro. Here, a 3D bioprinted in vitro brain matrix-mimetic microenvironment model with hyaluronic acid (HA) and normal glial cells (HEBs) is developed which simulates both mechanical and biological properties of human brain microenvironment in vivo through the investigation of the formulation of bioinks and optimization of printing process and parameters to study the effects of different concentration of gelatin (GA) within the bioink and different printing structures of the scaffold on the performance of the brain matrix-mimetic microenvironment models. The study provides experimental models for the exploration of the multiple factors in the brain microenvironment and scaffolds for GBM invasion study.