Journal: Bioactive Materials
Article Title: Ribbon-shaped microgels as bioinks for 3D bioprinting of anisotropic tissue structures
doi: 10.1016/j.bioactmat.2025.12.040
Figure Lengend Snippet: μRB bioinks support multicellular patterning to model breast cancer-bone invasion at tissue interface. (A) Schematic of experimental design: bioprinting of MSCs and osteogenic differentiation to derive bone grid, followed by injection of breast cancer bioink, and monitoring invasion over time using confocal microscopy. (B) Confocal images of MSCs (red) after printing (Scale bar = 1 mm). (C) Confocal images of scaffold sections containing CellTracker-labeled MSCs (red) after 28 days of osteogenic differentiation and GFP + MDA-MB-231 cells extruded into the open pores of the grids (green) (Scale bar = 200 μm). (D) Confocal images of patterned MSC-derived bone (red) with MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 breast cancer cells (green) after 14 days of co-culture (Scale bar = 1 mm). (E) Quantification of breast cancer cell invasion: percentage that remain in open pores vs. invading into the MSC-bone compartment (n = 5 per group). Values are reported as mean ± S.D. and p-values were determined by two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey's multiple comparisons test; ∗∗p ≤ 0.01, ∗∗∗p ≤ 0.005, ∗∗∗∗p ≤ 0.001.
Article Snippet: Breast cancer cell lines MDA-MB-231 (ATCC) and MCF-7 (ATCC) were lentivirus transduced to express GFP and cultured in DMEM media (4.5 g L −1 glucose) supplemented with 10 % (v/v) fetal bovine serum and 1 % (v/v) penicillin-streptomycin.
Techniques: Injection, Confocal Microscopy, Labeling, Derivative Assay, Co-Culture Assay