Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Cells-In-Touch: 3D Printing in Reconstruction and Modelling of Microscopic Biological Geometries for Research and Education

Version 1 : Received: 9 May 2022 / Approved: 10 May 2022 / Online: 10 May 2022 (10:10:24 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Fitzpatrick, X.; Fayzullin, A.; Wang, G.; Parker, L.; Dokos, S.; Guller, A. Cells-in-Touch: 3D Printing in Reconstruction and Modelling of Microscopic Biological Geometries for Education and Future Research Applications. Bioengineering 2023, 10, 687. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering10060687 Fitzpatrick, X.; Fayzullin, A.; Wang, G.; Parker, L.; Dokos, S.; Guller, A. Cells-in-Touch: 3D Printing in Reconstruction and Modelling of Microscopic Biological Geometries for Education and Future Research Applications. Bioengineering 2023, 10, 687. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering10060687

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (3D printing) and computer-aided design (CAD) still have limited up-take in biomedical and bioengineering research and education, despite the significant potential of these technologies. The utility of organ-scale 3D-printed models of living structures is widely appreciated, while the workflows for microscopy data translation into tactile-accessible replicas are not well developed yet. Here, we demonstrate an accessible and reproducible CAD-based methodology for generating 3D-printed scalable models of human cells cultured in vitro and imaged using conventional scanning confocal microscopy and fused deposition modelling (FDM) 3D printing. We termed this technology CiTo-3DP (Cells-in-Touch for 3D Printing). As a proof-of-concept, we created CiTo-3DP models of human pancreatic cancer cells and healthy dermal fibroblasts by using selectively stained nuclei and the cytoskeleton components (f-actin and α-smooth muscle actin). The production of dismountable sets of cellular components was al-so shown. The CiTo-3DP approach can be adapted to comprehensively present various cell types, subcellular structures and extracellular matrices. We envisage that the resulting CAD and 3D printed models could be used for further applications, including but not limited to in silico simulations for biology, medicine, pharmacological research, tissue engineering, morphometrical analysis, multiphysics modelling, education, rehabilitation of visually impaired people, and integration into virtual reality.

Keywords

3D printing; microscopy; CAD; FDM; cell shape; cytoskeleton; tactile education; data visualization; modelling; Materialise Mimics; CiTo-3DP

Subject

Engineering, Bioengineering

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