Fabrication of Vascularized Model for Bone Marrow Engineering
Summary
Currently the majority of our understanding of these niche-specific phenomena have been
obtained from small animal and two dimensional models which have a limited spatiotemporal
resolution and do not always accurately reproduce the function of human bone marrow. This
research aimed to biofabricate a vascularized bone marrow three-dimensional model for bone
marrow engineering. We developed a gelMA hydrogel combined with a visible light crosslinking
system for volumetric bioprinting which mimics the physical properties of bone marrow and
supported vessel-like structure formation. Conditions for the co-culture of vascularized structures
and hematopoietic stem cells were investigated and revealed that, the presence of serum in the
culture medium is essential for vessel formation, macromolecular crowding promotes niche cell
proliferation, niche cells are functional in hypoxic environment, and finally the negative effect of
hematopoietic stem expansion medium on cellular metabolism can be mitigated by the addition
of endothelial growth medium.