Advantage of Alginate Bioinks in Biofabrication for Various Tissue Engineering Applications

Bioprinting is fast emerging as a viable technique for organ fabrication. Though various types of bioprinting methods have been developed, the most commonly used bioprinting is extrusion-based bioprinting (EBB). Bioinks are extruded layer-by-layer forming a 3D multicellular construct and scaled up to dimensions depending upon the specific tissue to be regenerated. Among various bioinks, alginate, a natural polysaccharide, has been extensively used because of its good printability in physiologically amenable conditions. Though alginate possesses good printability properties, it promotes little cell-material interaction resulting in limited biofunctionality. Therefore, it becomes necessary to blend/modify alginate to improve the biological properties of bioink without compromising printability. This paper presents a review of the various approaches used to optimize bioprinting with alginate bioinks and their limitations.