Fabrication of Vascularized Model for Bone Marrow Engineering

Abstract

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.