AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB026060050
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Early Access

Tiny bricks for oral bioprinting: Exploring gingiva and dental pulp-derived organ building blocks

Grinchevskaia Lidiia1† Kardosh V1† Izhbulatova Vitalia R1† Kosheleva Nastasia V1 Kuznetsova Daria S1 Efremov Yuri M1 Mozherov Artem M1 Fayzullin Alexey L1 Bikmulina Polina Y1 Kotova Svetlana L1 Shpichka Anastasia I1 Pavlov Oleg O2 Yakimov Boris P2,3 Timashev Peter S1*
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1 Institute for Regenerative Medicine, I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
2 Faculty of Physics, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
3 Laboratory of Clinical Biophotonics, I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Trubetskaya 8, Moscow, 119048, Russia
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
Received: 3 September 2025 | Accepted: 5 February 2026 | Published online: 19 February 2026
© 2026 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

Today, Organ Building Blocks (OBBs) serve as an important tool for the in vitro tissue modeling, personalized medicine, and regenerative approaches. Despite the achieved advances in dental reconstruction methods, tissues of the oral cavity remain challenging to regenerate due to their complex structure and microenvironment. At the same time, the need for effective regeneration of the periodontal complex persists, e.g., in such diseases as periodontitis, since current methods do not achieve the complete tissue restoration. Cells from the gingiva and dental pulp are accessible sources of mesenchymal stem cells with a high regenerative potential, that makes them promising materials for creating OBBs. These cells can serve as fundamental units in restoring the periodontal complex using such techniques as 3D bioprinting. This study is aimed at the characterization and comparison of OBBs formed from gingival cells, pulp cells, and their combinations by assessing the key parameters, including the morphology, extracellular matrix composition, biomechanical properties, histology, and metabolic activity.  Combining the two cell types improved the structural, mechanical, and functional properties of OBBs, making them more suitable for bioprinting compared to OBBs from only one cell type. Moreover, all types of OBBs from the two cell cultures may be suitable as components of bioinks, depending on the specific purposes. The obtained results provide an insight into the potential use of these cell sources for tissue engineering and development of personalized periodontal bio-constructs, that may significantly improve treatment approaches for oral diseases.

Keywords
Organ Building Blocks (OBBs)
Tissue engineering
Regenerative medicine
Oral tissues
Gingiva cells
Dental pulp cells
Periodontal complex regeneration.
Funding
The work was carried out with financial support from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation under grant agreement № 075-15-2024-640 (Sechenov University).
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