Microfluidic-based generation of bioactive microgels for 3D cell culture

Abstract

Microfluidic flow-focusing devices are widely used to generate uniform aqueous droplets with controllable size as carriers for biomedical applications. The droplets consisting of bioactive prepolymers can be crosslinked to generate microgels. This microfluidics-based approach to create microgels has been shown to be highly effective in creating 3D microtissues by in situ cell encapsulation, which leads to 3D spheroid formation. This could be used as tissue models for in vitro biological investigation as well as implantable and injectable microtissues for tissue engineering applications. Herein, the design and optimization of microfluidic device parameters to maximize the cell viability during the microgel fabrication are first introduced. Then, several notable examples of this microfluidics-based microtissue generation are presented, including hepatocarcinoma, macrophage, and breast tumor. More specifically, the effects of mechanical properties and composition of the microgels on the proliferation and differentiation are explored by controlling the crosslinking density and including bioactive molecules. Furthermore, these microtissues are used for drug screening assays and building blocks to create larger 3D tissue models