Revolutionizing cancer care: Bioprinting prostate cancer stem cells for targeted treatments

Table 2 Challenges in bioprinting prostate cancer stem cell models: Technical and clinical perspectives

Category	Challenge	Scientific context
Bioink engineering	Inadequate mimicry of prostate ECM and mechanical inconsistencies	Balancing stiffness and porosity to maintain PCSC phenotype and niche interactions
Cell viability and distribution	Cellular stress during extrusion and uneven cell dispersal	Shear stress impairs PCSC survival and may affect expression of stemness-related markers
Recapitulation of niche	Incomplete integration of stromal cells, hypoxia and cytokine signaling	Limitation in modeling immune- evasive and therapy -resistant PCSC microenvironment
Standardization & scalability	Difficulty in reproducing constructs with consistent geometry and cellular organization	Affects comparative drug screening and reproducibility across platforms
Vascularization limitations	Lack of functional vasculature in vitro impedes nutrient perfusion and long-term culture	Hinders tumor model viability for chronic drug studies and metastasis research
Clinical translation	Limited alignment with clinical tumor heterogeneity and patient-specific responses	Necessitates integration with omits data and patient-derived cells to improve predictive value

PCSC: Prostate cancer stem cell; ECM: Extracellular matrix.