Diego Alonso Quevedo-Moreno, Ada I. Frías-Sánchez, Fernando Ponz, Mario Moises Alvarez, Víctor Hugo Sánchez-Rodríguez, Grissel Trujillo-de Santiago, Ivonne González-Gamboa, Mohamadmahdi Samandari, Jorge Alfonso Tavares-Negrete, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (México), Frias-Sanchez, AI, Quevedo-Moreno, DA, Samandari, M, Tavares-Negrete, JA, Sanchez-Rodriguez, VH, Gonzalez-Gamboa, I, Ponz, F, Alvarez, MM, Trujillo-de Santiago, G, Frias-Sanchez, AI [0000-0002-0546-3907], Quevedo-Moreno, DA [0000-0002-6399-9988], Samandari, M [0000-0001-7860-9535], Tavares-Negrete, JA [0000-0001-7695-460X], Sanchez-Rodriguez, VH [0000-0001-9538-4761], Gonzalez-Gamboa, I [0000-0003-1617-8252], Ponz, F [0000-0003-0344-4363], Alvarez, MM [0000-0002-9131-5344], and Trujillo-de Santiago, G [0000-0001-9230-4607]
Multiple human tissues exhibit fibrous nature. Therefore, the fabrication of hydrogel filaments for tissue engineering is a trending topic. Current tissue models are made of materials that often require further enhancement for appropriate cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation. Here we present a simple strategy, based on the use of surface chaotic flows amenable to mathematical modeling, to fabricate continuous, long and thin filaments of gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA). The fabrication of these filaments is achieved by chaotic advection in a finely controlled and miniaturized version of the journal bearing system. A drop of GelMA pregel is injected on a higher-density viscous fluid (glycerin) and a chaotic flow is applied through an iterative process. The millimeter-scale hydrogel drop is exponentially deformed and elongated to generate a meter-scale fiber, which was then polymerized under UV-light exposure. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations are conducted to determine the characteristics of the flow and design the experimental conditions for fabrication of the fibers. GelMA fibers were effectively used as scaffolds for C2C12 myoblast cells. Experimental results demonstrate an accurate accordance with CFD simulations for the predicted length of the fibers. Plant-based viral nanoparticles (i.e.Turnip mosaic virus; TuMV) were then integrated to the hydrogel fibers as a secondary nano-scaffold for cells for enhanced muscle tissue engineering. The addition of TuMV significantly increased the metabolic activity of the cell-seeded fibers (p* < 0.05), strengthened cell attachment throughout the first 28 d, improved cell alignment, and promoted the generation of structures that resemble natural mammal muscle tissues. Chaotic two-dimensional-printing is proven to be a viable method for the fabrication of hydrogel fibers. The combined use of thin and long GelMA hydrogel fibers enhanced with flexuous virions offers a promising alternative for scaffolding of muscle cells and show potential to be used as cost-effective models for muscle tissue engineering purposes., This work was supported by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) and Tecnológico de Monterrey. FP thanks the Spanish Ministry of Science for the Severo Ochoa Excellence Accreditation to the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP) (SEV-2016-0672). AIFS acknowledges funding received by CONACYT in the form of a Graduate Studies Scholarship. GTdS and MMA gratefully acknowledge the Academic Scholarships provided by CONACyT as members of the National System of Researchers (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores). We thank MSc. Regina E. Vargas-Mejía for her technical assistance during SEM sessions. We acknowledge M.Sc. Sara Cristina Pedroza González for their technical assistance during cell culture experiments.