A 3D Tissue-Printing Approach for Validation of Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Skeletal Muscle.

The focus of this study employs new 3D printing strategies to develop a novel set of precision-engineered phantoms for characterizing the interrelationship between microstructural variables and magnetic resonance -diffusion parameters in skeletal muscle. We hypothesize that physiologically relevant changes in muscle microstructure and microfluidics are separable and can be specifically identified using a novel application of multi-echo diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging experiments. We used 50%PEGDA/50%PBS and 80%PEGDA/20%PBS prepolymer solutions to successfully fabricate the five geometric designs (30μm hexagons, 50μm hexagons, and 70μm hexagons 50μm hexagon phantoms with 40% of walls randomly deleted, and phantoms with no geometry) and the two histology informed designs (control and 30-day denervation). Qualitatively, the five printed designs mimicked the input designs well based on microscopic image examination. These microscopic images demonstrate the use of rapid 3D printing technology to fabricate phantoms of muscle tissue that reproduce the features of each muscle fiber.