Abstract

A 3D Bioprinted Human Neurovascular Unit as a Tissue-in-a-well Platform For Brain Disease Modeling and Drug Screening

Yen-Ting Tung, Research Fellow, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)

Physiologically relevant in vitro 3D brain tissue models have been challenging to develop because of the high spatial and functional complexity of the neural cellular interactions and cellular microenvironment. Through 3D bioprinted technology, we are developing a 3D bioprinted human neurovascular unit (NVU) in a 96-multiwell plate format to be used as a tissue-in-a-well assay platform for high through-put screening (HTS). This 3D NVU contains endothelial cells/pericytes/astrocytes which were bioprinted precisely on a well with a ring-shaped pattern. This ring shape geometry facilitates the quantitation of vasculogenic as well as angiogenesis by measuring the microvessels branching inward in the ring using endothelial cells expressing GFP and fluorescence-based high content imaging readers. This bioprinted vascularized NVU provide a robust tissue in as well model for screening and it has the versatility to increase its cellular and functional complexity by including additional neuronal or cancerous cells/spheroids in the inner ring to model neurological diseases or brain cancers, respectively.