A computational study of droplet-based bioprinting: effects of viscoelasticity

Abstract

Despite significant progress, cell viability continues to be a central issue in droplet-based bioprinting applications. Common bioinks exhibit viscoelastic behavior owing to the presence of long-chain molecules in their mixture. We computationally study effects of viscoelasticity of bioinks on cell viability during deposition of cell-loaded droplets on a substrate using a compound droplet model. The inner droplet, which represents the cell, and the encapsulating droplet are modeled as viscoelastic liquids with different material properties, while the ambient fluid is Newtonian. The model proposed by Takamatsu and Rubinsky ["Viability of deformed cells," Cryobiology 39(3), 243-251 (1999)] is used to relate cell deformation to cell viability. We demonstrate that adding viscoelasticity to the encapsulating droplet fluid can significantly enhance the cell viability, suggesting that viscoelastic properties of bioinks can be tailored to achieve high cell viability in droplet-based bioprinting systems. The effects of the cell viscoelasticity are also examined, and it is shown that the Newtonian cell models may significantly overpredict the cell viability.