Efficacy Study of the 3D-Bioprinted Stem Cell-laden Cardiac Patch using Large Animal Model

Abstract

There has been introduced that the stem cell therapy is a promising method for the treatment of the ischemic heart diseases in worldwide. As the existing technology of stem cell therapies in general, intracoronary delivery method had shown several disadvantages such as low homing rate of cells to the injury region, reduced viability and heterogeneous therapeutic outcomes in the clinics. To overcome these problems, patch-based therapy has been studied by using 3D bioprinting technique. In this study, stem cells-laden decellularized extracellular matrix bioink was used for the materials that can serve the cardiac-specific cell-ECM environment compared to other type of materials. We fabricated the large sized cardiac patch having dual stem cells that was alternated both types of cells in the one patch, thereby facilitating the promoted neovascularization on the infarcted zone. Also, we developed the proper transfer method to enable the long distance delivery and it can provide physical and biological stability of the printed patch. The patch was transplanted on the infarcted zone via thoracotomy approach and observed for 4 weeks. The echocardiography was shown that the ejection fraction was highly improved compared to the initial baseline.