AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB025140116
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Early Access

High-resolution printing of a Schiff-base collagen I/alginate/oxidized hydroxylmethyl cellulose scaffold for enhanced osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells

Kaixuan Li1,2† Hanxiao Huang1,2,3† Peng Ge1,2 Cailiang Shen1,2*
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1 Department of Orthopedics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China
2 Laboratory of Spinal and Spinal Cord Injury Regeneration and Repair, Department of Spine Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China
3 Department of Stomatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
Received: 1 April 2025 | Accepted: 29 May 2025 | Published online: 3 June 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Collagen I is the key extracellular matrix (ECMs) compound in bone tissue and one of the most important biomaterials for bone tissue engineering applications. However, it was challenging to print its mesh scaffold with a high resolution presumably due to its relatively weak ink shape fidelity. Though existing studies attempted to solve this issue by increasing its ink viscosity, the improvement of printing resolution was still limited while the ink flowability was undesirably sacrificed. To solve the aforementioned problems, we blended oxidized cellulose with collagen I to form a Schiff-base interaction. The obtained hydrogel exhibited a lower viscosity but more apparent linear rheological characteristic according to our large amplitude oscillation test (LAOS) results, which achieved a printing resolution approaching 150 μm and reported one of the highest printing resolutions among collagen I-based scaffolds. Scaffolds with this scale of rod diameter and pore size greatly promoted the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of MSCs. Osteogenic-related genes including N-cadherin, HIF-1α, and β-catenin were all upregulated in their expression. We believe this study would broaden our understanding towards scaffold design and processing optimization for bone tissue engineering applications. 

Keywords
Collagen I
3D printing
Printing resolution
Osteogenic differentiation
Funding
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (82272551), Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center Institute of Health and Medicine (JKS2023001), and University Natural Science Research Project of Anhui Province 2022AH051152.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing