3D-Printed Biomimetic Tongue Surface Could Revolutionize Research in Fields From Healthcare to Food

Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Edinburgh have successfully 3D printed a "biomimetic tongue surface," offering a chance to carry out oral processing experiments without the need for a human subject.

"Recreating the surface of an average human tongue comes with unique architectural challenges," explains lead author Dr. Efren Andablo-Reyes of the project. "Hundreds of small bud-like structures called papilla give the tongue its characteristic rough texture that in combination to the soft nature of the tissue create a complicated landscape from a mechanical perspective. We focused our attention on the anterior dorsal section of the tongue where some of these papillae contain taste receptors, while many of them lack such receptors."

"Both kinds of papillae play a critical role in providing the right mechanical friction to aid food processing in the mouth with the adequate amount saliva, providing pleasurable mouthfeel perception and proper lubrication for swallowing. We aimed to replicate these mechanically relevant characteristics of the human tongue in a surface that is easy to use in the lab to replicate oral processing conditions."

To create the biomimetic tongue, the researchers took silicon impressions from 15 adults and 3D scanned them, using the resulting data to produce an artificial surface which mimicked the real thing - including random distribution of papillae. "“The randomness in distribution of papillae appears to play an important sensory role for the tongue," notes co-author Rik Sarkar. "We defined a new concept called collision probability to measure mechanosensing that will have large impact in this area. In the future, we will use a combination of machine learning and computational topology to create tongue models of diverse healthy and diseased individuals to address various oral conditions."

The 3D-printed tongue surface proved to perform the same as a human tongue, and is to be used as a stand-in for a range of research efforts: "The application of bio-tribological principles, the study of friction and lubrication, in the creation of this tongue-like surface is a significant step forward in this field," adds co-author Dr. Michael Bryant. "The ability to produce accurate replicas of tongue surfaces with similar structure and mechanical properties will help streamline research and development for oral care, food products, and therapeutic technologies."

The team's work has been published under open-access terms in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.