Bacterial extracellular matrix yields a light-crosslinked hydrogel for bioprinting
Published in Biology, Bioprinting, Journals, Tools.
Published October 29, 2026.
A bacterial extracellular matrix provides the starting material for a printable, cell-compatible hydrogel. Radmehr and colleagues describe the biofabrication platform today in Communications Materials.
The approach uses extracellular polymeric substances produced by Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1. These substances contain a mixture of polysaccharides and proteins, offering a multicomponent alternative to hydrogels built around a single principal ingredient.
Following three days of bacterial cultivation and extraction, the material can be chemically modified with methacrylate groups and crosslinked using red or blue light. The researchers report a porous, injectable hydrogel with rapid gelation and suitability for three-dimensional bioprinting.
The result is a materials platform for investigating more versatile scaffolds in tissue engineering. Cytocompatibility in the tests performed does not establish implant safety, immune compatibility or regeneration of a functional organ. Those applications require further biological and translational evaluation.