Evaluating the effect of elastin in the angiogenic response of silk fibroin 3d printed scaffolds

Statement of Purpose: Silk fibroin (SF) has been extensively exploited in tissue engineering (TE) applications1. The high processing versatility of this biomaterial, its biocompatibility, slow biodegradation profile and remarkable mechanical properties as prompted their use in long term cellular-scaffolding approaches. In a previous work2, the development of a novel fast enzymatic setting SF bioink with the ability to be printable with high resolution into different structures in a reproductible and reliable manner was the step forward to their application in high precision personalized TE approaches. Recently, the same authors have proposed an SF/elastin supplemented bioink for mimicking the composition of the outer structure of the intervertebral disc (IVD) on a patient-specific approach, showing the potentiality/versatility of SF bioinks to be combined with different biomolecules for replicating the different native tissues3. In this work, the effect of elastin on the angiogenic response of SF bioprinted scaffolds was explored by using a widely accepted in vivo model for studying neovascularization, i.e. the chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay4.