3D printed gellan gum/graphene oxide scaffold for tumor therapy and bone reconstruction

Abstract Compared with traditional tissue engineering scaffold processing methods, 3D printing technology has obvious advantages in achieving high structural complexity, flexibility and specific patient needs. Printing ink materials with both high printability and biocompatibility remains a major challenge. Herein, a hydrogel bio-ink with excellent thixotropy and recovery properties was prepared by combining gellan gum (GG) and graphene oxide (GO) for extrusion 3D printing. The GG/GO scaffold constructed by 3D printing has a regular and connected porous structure, which maintains high fidelity with the model. Cell proliferation and attachment in the printed 3D curcumin-loaded scaffold revealed that the bifunctional GG/GO/Cur scaffold could inhibit human osteosarcoma cell line (MG-63) growth significantly and induce tumor cell death effectively in vitro. Simultaneously, the scaffold could support the attachment and proliferation of mouse osteoblast cell (MC3T3). Therefore, the functional GG/GO/Cur scaffold is expected to be used to repair the bone defects induced by surgery and kill the possibly residual tumor cells at the same time to achieve the purpose of tumor therapy and bone reconstruction.