Aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) are water solutions of limited miscible hydrophilic materials that can form an emulsion upon mixture and used for several bio applications. [1] Lately, these systems have also emerged as promising materials for bioinks for 3D bioprinting. [2] Obtained emulsion can be stabilized with photocrosslinking of one of the components, when the other can be washed away, leaving porous hydrogel with the inner structure for cell cultivation. The typical ATPS in the scope of bioprinting is the system of gelatin methacrylate (Gel-Ma) and high molecular weight polyethylene oxide (PEO), where Gel-Ma bears the photocrosslinking functionality and PEO is the leaving component.[2]
This study expands the range of potential systems by using PEO with varying molecular weights to determine the optimal composition for ATPS formation. Additionally, we successfully created ATPS using gelatin modified with tyramine (Gel-Tyr) and in-house synthesized poly(α-amino acids)[3], a synthetic alternative to natural poly(amino acids). The resulting hydrogels obtained by photocrosslinking in visible light were characterized for their physicochemical properties, including microscopy imaging, gel yield, and swelling capacity. The designed systems were systematically compared, and the most promising formulations were evaluated for bioprinting applications. We believe that obtained results help to broaden the knowledge for ATPS as biomaterials for cell cultivation.
Acknowledgments
Financial support from The project National Institute for Cancer Research (Programme EXCELES, ID project no. LX22NPO5102)
[1] Wang C, Zhang Z, Wang Q, Wang J and Shang L 2023 Aqueous two-phase emulsions toward biologically relevant applications Trends Chem. 5 61–75
[2] Ying G L, Jiang N, Maharjan S, Yin Y X, Chai R R, Cao X, Yang J Z, Miri A K, Hassan S and Zhang Y S 2018 Aqueous Two-Phase Emulsion Bioink-Enabled 3D Bioprinting of Porous Hydrogels Adv. Mater. 30 1–9
[3] Dvořáková J, Trousil J, Podhorská B, Mikšovská Z, Janoušková O and Proks V Enzymatically Cross-linked Hydrogels Based on Synthetic Poly(α-amino acid)s Functionalized with RGD Peptide for 3D Mesenchymal Stem Cell Culture Biomacromolecules 2021, 22 (4), 1417–31