Tailor-made conductive inks from cellulose nanofibrils for 3D printing of neural guidelines
Journal article, 2018
Neural tissue engineering (TE), an innovative biomedical method of brain study, is very dependent on scaffolds that support cell development into a functional tissue. Recently, 3D patterned scaffolds for neural TE have shown significant positive effects on cells by a more realistic mimicking of actual neural tissue. In this work, we present a conductive nanocellulose-based ink for 3D printing of neural TE scaffolds. It is demonstrated that by using cellulose nanofibrils and carbon nanotubes as ink constituents, it is possible to print guidelines with a diameter below 1 mm and electrical conductivity of 3.8 × 10 −1 S cm −1 . The cell culture studies reveal that neural cells prefer to attach, proliferate, and differentiate on the 3D printed conductive guidelines. To our knowledge, this is the first research effort devoted to using cost-effective cellulosic 3D printed structures in neural TE, and we suppose that much more will arise in the near future.
Conductive ink
Neural tissue engineering
3D printing
Cellulose nanofibrils
Author
Volodymyr Kuzmenko
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Electronics Material and Systems
Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)
Erdem Karabulut
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)
Elin Pernevik
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Anke Sanz-Velasco
Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Electronics Material and Systems
Paul Gatenholm
Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC)
Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry
Carbohydrate Polymers
0144-8617 (ISSN)
Vol. 189 22-30Subject Categories
Cell Biology
Neurosciences
Cell and Molecular Biology
DOI
10.1016/j.carbpol.2018.01.097