3D Printing of Microbial Polysaccharides

Abstract

From the last three decades, innovative 3D printing processes have been progressively more investigated for food and regenerative medicine topics due to modern technological advances of 3D printers. In tissue engineering, 3D bioprinting technologies are increasingly improved by the continuous development of efficient bioinks. In this area, biodegradable, cell-biocompatible and nontoxic biopolymers such as microbial polysaccharides have been successfully used as hydrogel biomaterial for bone, skin, etc., tissue regeneration. This chapter, specially dedicated to 3D bioprinting of biopolymers, aims to give a recent overview on the main chemical characterization (monosaccharide compositions, glycosyl linkage…) and physicochemical properties (gelling properties…) of bacterial polysaccharides used as promising bioinks bioprintable materials for tissue engineering fields.