AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB025290288
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Early Access

3D Bioprinted osteochondral model based on hierarchical polymeric microarchitectures for in vitro osteoarthritis drug screening

Yi-Cheng Wang1† Xiao-Jie Song1† Xiao-Chang Lu1 Zhou-Jiang Chen2 Yue-Wei Li1 Ranjith Kumar Kankala1 Ai-Zheng Chen1 Shi-Bin Wang1* Chao-Ping Fu1*
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1 Institute of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering & Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Biochemical Technology Huaqiao University, Xiamen, 361021, China
2 Engineering Research Center for Pharmaceuticals and Equipments of Sichuan Province, Sichuan Industrial Institute of Antibiotics, School of Pharmacy, Chengdu University, Chengdu, 610106, China
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
Received: 14 July 2025 | Accepted: 10 September 2025 | Published online: 10 September 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Strategies in 3D Bioprinting for Disease Modelling)
© 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

Compared to conventional two-dimensional (2D) or scaffold-free three-dimensional (3D) drug screening models, biomimetic osteochondral constructs offer superior physiological relevance for studying osteoarthritis (OA) and accelerating therapeutic discovery. Herein, we report the development of a polymeric microarchitecture (PM)-based 3D osteochondral model for drug screening applications. Microfluidics-assisted fabrication enabled the generation of cartilage-like and osteogenic microtissues by encapsulating chondrocytes and endothelial/osteoblast cells within PMs. These multicellular aggregates were embedded in gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) and assembled via 3D bioprinting into a stratified osteochondral construct. The model exhibited favorable cell viability, proliferation, and organized microtissue formation, validating its biological functionality. An OA-like microenvironment was induced with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which significantly elevated pro-inflammatory cytokines. Treatment with diclofenac, dexamethasone, or curcumin markedly attenuated this response, reducing TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 to 42.1, 193.5, and 193.5 pg/mL, respectively, while elevating the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 to 90.2 pg/mL. Overall, this PM-supported 3D osteochondral platform reproduces key features of native joint tissue and holds promise for OA research, drug screening, and regenerative medicine.

Keywords
Microfluidics
Porous microspheres
Drug screening
3D osteochondral model
Curcumin
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, 52503177, and 32271410), the Science and Technology Projects in Fujian Province (2022FX1, 2023Y4008). the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province [grant number No.: 2022J01297], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number ZQN-1107], the Program for Innovative Research Team in Science and Technology in Fujian Province, Scientific Research Funds of Huaqiao University (24BS132).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing