Xolography for Biomedical Applications: Dual-Color Light-Sheet Printing of Hydrogels With Local Control Over Shape and Stiffness

Abstract

Current challenges in tissue engineering include creation of extracellular environments that support and interact with cells using biochemical, mechanical, and structural cues. Spatial control over these cues is currently limited due to a lack of suitable fabrication techniques. This study introduces Xolography, an emerging dual-color light-sheet volumetric printing technology, to achieve control over structural and mechanical features for hydrogel-based photoresins at micro- to macroscale while printing within minutes. A water-soluble photoswitch photoinitiator system and a library of naturally-derived, synthetic, and thermoresponsive hydrogels for Xolography are proposed. Centimeter-scale, 3D constructs with positive features of 20 µm and negative features of ≈100 µm are fabricated with control over mechanical properties (compressive moduli 0.2 kPa–6.5 MPa). Notably, switching from binary to grayscaled light projection enables spatial control over stiffness (0.2–16 kPa). As a proof of concept, grayscaled Xolography is leveraged with thermoresponsive hydrogels to introduce reversible anisotropic shape changes beyond isometric shrinkage. Xolography of viable cell aggregates is finally demonstrated, laying the foundation for cell-laden printing of dynamic, cell-instructive environments with tunable structural and mechanical cues in a fast one-step process. Overall, these innovations unlock unique possibilities of Xolography across multiple biomedical applications.