AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB026330358
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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Chia seed mucilage widens the thermal processing window of GelMA biomaterial inks

Saime Nur Karasu1,2,3 ,  Tuğrul Tolga Demirtaş1,4,5*
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1 ERNAM-Erciyes University Nanotechnology Application and Research Center, Erciyes University, Kayseri , Türkiye
2 Department of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Erciyes University, Kayseri , Türkiye
3 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Biruni University, Istanbul , Türkiye
4 Department of Basic Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, Erciyes University, Kayseri , Türkiye
5 Drug Application and Research Center (ERFARMA), Erciyes University, Kayseri , Türkiye
Received: 13 August 2026 | Revised: 10 September 2026 | Accepted: 15 September 2026 | Published online: 16 September 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) is among the most widely used bioinks because it retains the cell-adhesive and protease-sensitive motifs of gelatin and photo-crosslinks on demand. At printable concentrations, however, its viscosity is governed by the gelatin coil–helix transition near ambient temperature, so ink rheology becomes a steep function of print-head temperature and extrusion is difficult to control. Here we report a physically blended biomaterial ink in which microwave-synthesized GelMA (10% w/v) is combined with mucilage extracted from chia (Salvia hispanica L.) seeds at 0.5%, 1%, and 2% (w/v) and photo-crosslinked with 0.3% (w/v) lithium phenyl-2,4,6-trimethylbenzoylphosphinate under a 395–480 nm curing light. ¹H NMR gave a degree of methacrylation of 81.9% for the microwave-synthesized GelMA, determined from consumption of the lysine methylene resonance against an aromatic internal reference. The principal finding is thermal: chia mucilage decouples ink viscosity from temperature. Pristine GelMA lost a factor of 3838 in viscosity between 15 and 45 °C and 63% of its remaining viscosity per degree at the 30 °C print head, whereas the 1% and 2% blends lost only 49- and 41-fold overall and 32% and 15% per degree. The mucilage itself is nearly athermal (258 → 186 mPa·s over the same range), identifying it as the component responsible. Mechanical reinforcement, by contrast, is not a dose response but a threshold effect. Relative to pristine GelMA (55.7 ± 5.8 kPa), 0.5% chia gave a modestly lower compressive modulus (42.6 ± 6.2 kPa) that did not reach significance (p = 0.056), whereas 1% and 2% raised it 17.5- and 30.0-fold (974.8 ± 101.3 and 1671.0 ± 173.8 kPa; p = 0.004). Scanning electron microscopy showed a fibrous polysaccharide network that is sparse and discontinuous at 0.5% and becomes continuous between 0.5% and 1% (w/v), and we interpret the mechanical threshold as rigidity percolation of this network — an interpretation consistent with the microstructure rather than a mechanism established by it. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy showed dose-dependent growth of the pyranose C–O–C and carboxylate bands together with a broadened O–H/N–H envelope, indicating hydrogen bonding between the mucilage and the gelatin amide groups, while X-ray diffraction confirmed that the mucilage remains amorphous and well dispersed. Filament geometry measured across nine pressure–speed combinations gave optimal spreading ratios of 1.158 for GelMA, 1.164 for the 1% blend and 1.016 for the 2% blend. Chia mucilage therefore acts less as a stiffener than as an agent that decouples ink viscosity from temperature, widening the thermal processing window of GelMA at low cost from a renewable plant source.  Because no cell-laden printing or cytocompatibility assay was performed, the cell-free formulations described here are termed biomaterial inks rather than bioinks, following the consensus biofabrication nomenclature; the study establishes the rheological and engineering foundation for subsequent cell-laden translation.

Keywords
Gelatin methacryloyl
Chia mucilage
Blend biomaterial ink
Extrusion bioprinting
Thermal decoupling
Percolation
Printability
Rheology
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing