Collagen bioink for 3D printing — sterile, highly concentrated native porcine type I collagen (80 mg/mL) in a syringe-ready format for direct extrusion bioprinting. At this concentration the ink is viscous enough to print self-supporting scaffolds straight from the syringe, without the prior neutralisation step that lower-concentration collagen formulations require — removing variable gelation kinetics, the largest source of irreproducibility in collagen bioprinting. On warming to 37 °C the native triple-helical collagen sets into a fibrillar matrix that supports high cell viability in long-term 3D culture. The bioprinting-grade counterpart to the laboratory-grade porcine collagens cat. 130 (atelocollagen 3D gel), cat. 882 (native 3D gel) and cat. 785 (porcine I/III 3D gel).
SPECIFICATIONS
Catalogue number: 144 | Origin: Porcine | Collagen type: Type I
Concentration: 80 mg/mL | Solute: 10 mM acetic acid
Format: Sterile solution, syringe-ready (kit)
Sterility: Negative for bacteria and fungi
Compatibility: Extrusion 3D bioprinters (syringe-pump driven)
STORAGE
Store at +4 °C to +8 °C. Shelf life 12 months. DO NOT FREEZE — freezing destroys the printability of the ink.
DIRECTIONS FOR USE
Two workflows are supported. Maintain aseptic technique throughout to preserve sterility.
Workflow 1 — direct printing of cell-free scaffolds. The high viscosity allows extrusion without prior neutralisation; printing is unaffected by ambient temperature between 4 °C and 20 °C. (1) Remove the syringe cap and push the plunger until a small droplet forms at the tip. (2) Attach the syringe to the printer syringe pump. (3) Transfer the collagen solution slowly to the printing syringe. (4) Extrude / print. (5) Cover the printed scaffold with warm culture medium (e.g. DMEM) to neutralise the acetic-acid solute and fix the structure. (6) Incubate at +37 °C for 30–60 min, then replace the covering medium. (7) The fibril-set scaffold is ready for cell seeding.
Workflow 2 — cell-laden bioprinting. Neutralise before adding cells; keep the bioink at +4 °C to +8 °C during neutralisation and cell mixing. Neutralisation: transfer 0.5 mL neutralisation buffer to an empty sterile syringe, fit a sterile syringe-to-syringe connector, bring both syringes to a droplet, couple them, expel air bubbles and push the plunger back and forth up to 50 times to mix; disconnect, keeping the connector on the bioink syringe. Mixing with cells: fill a sterile syringe with 0.5–1.0 mL of cell suspension in culture medium, couple to the neutralised bioink syringe, expel air and mix with up to 50 passes; the cell-laden bioink is then ready for the printer.
Printing conditions: complete the print within 1 hour of adding cells; hold the bioink at 4–10 °C in the printer syringe; heat the print plate to 37 °C to trigger immediate polymerisation for best print fidelity.
APPLICATIONS
- Direct-extrusion 3D bioprinting of native collagen scaffolds — no cross-linkers, photoinitiators or thermoresponsive helper polymers needed.
- Cell-laden bioprinting of fibroblasts, primary stem cells, organoid building blocks, vascular cells, chondrocytes, hepatocytes and induced pluripotent stem cells in a defined ECM matrix.
- Pre-clinical tissue-engineering constructs intended for in-vivo grafting — native, non-cross-linked collagen avoids the immunogenicity issues of synthetic hydrogels.
- Wound-healing / dermal scaffolds printed to patient anatomy and seeded with dermal fibroblasts or keratinocytes.
- Bone, cartilage and tendon scaffolds — templates for osteoblast, chondrocyte and tenocyte differentiation.
- Organoid and organ-on-chip scaffolds — printable matrix backbone for patterned tissue models.
- Bioink characterisation and rheology benchmarking — defined-composition native collagen as a reference material for bioprinter validation.
APPLICATION HIGHLIGHTS — HIGH-VALUE RESEARCH NICHES
- Reproducibility-critical bioprinting — skipping the neutralisation step removes the dominant source of batch-to-batch variability.
- Regenerative medicine — graftable, non-cross-linked collagen constructs.
- Tumour and vascular models — printed native-ECM geometries for invasion and angiogenesis studies.
- Cartilage and bone tissue engineering — type I collagen as the dominant fibrillar template.
- Method development — benchmark ink for new extrusion bioprinters and print-parameter optimisation.
Demo printing: https://www.youtube.com/v/M7KokIK6FP0
