- You, Shangting;
- Xiang, Yi;
- Hwang, Henry H;
- Berry, David B;
- Kiratitanaporn, Wisarut;
- Guan, Jiaao;
- Yao, Emmie;
- Tang, Min;
- Zhong, Zheng;
- Ma, Xinyue;
- Wangpraseurt, Daniel;
- Sun, Yazhi;
- Lu, Ting-Yu;
- Chen, Shaochen
Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting techniques have emerged as the most popular methods to fabricate 3D-engineered tissues; however, there are challenges in simultaneously satisfying the requirements of high cell density (HCD), high cell viability, and fine fabrication resolution. In particular, bioprinting resolution of digital light processing-based 3D bioprinting suffers with increasing bioink cell density due to light scattering. We developed a novel approach to mitigate this scattering-induced deterioration of bioprinting resolution. The inclusion of iodixanol in the bioink enables a 10-fold reduction in light scattering and a substantial improvement in fabrication resolution for bioinks with an HCD. Fifty-micrometer fabrication resolution was achieved for a bioink with 0.1 billion per milliliter cell density. To showcase the potential application in tissue/organ 3D bioprinting, HCD thick tissues with fine vascular networks were fabricated. The tissues were viable in a perfusion culture system, with endothelialization and angiogenesis observed after 14 days of culture.