Effect of actuating cell source on locomotion of organic living machines with electrocompacted collagen skeleton

Abstract

PAPEREffect of actuating cell source on locomotion of organic living machines with electrocompacted collagen skeleton Manuscript version: Accepted Manuscript Accepted Manuscript is "the version of the article accepted for publication including all changes made as a result of the peer review process, and which may also include the addition to the article by IOP Publishing of a header, an article ID, a cover sheet and/or an 'Accepted Manuscript' watermark, but excluding any other editing, typesetting or other changes made by IOP Publishing and/or its licensors" This Accepted Manuscript is © © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd.During the embargo period (the 12 month period from the publication of the Version of Record of this article), the Accepted Manuscript is fully protected by copyright and cannot be reused or reposted elsewhere. As the Version of Record of this article is going to be / has been published on a subscription basis, this Accepted Manuscript is available for reuse under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence after the 12 month embargo period.After the embargo period, everyone is permitted to use copy and redistribute this article for non-commercial purposes only, provided that they adhere to all the terms of the licence https://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-nd/3.0 Although reasonable endeavours have been taken to obtain all necessary permissions from third parties to include their copyrighted content within this article, their full citation and copyright line may not be present in this Accepted Manuscript version. Before using any content from this article, please refer to the Version of Record on IOPscience once published for full citation and copyright details, as permissions will likely be required. All third party content is fully copyright protected, unless specifically stated otherwise in the figure caption in the Version of Record.View the article online for updates and enhancements. January 2016Abstract.In robotics, there is a need for small scale, compliant actuators for use in medical applications or minimally invasive environmental monitoring. Biohybrid devices offer one solution to this need by using muscle cells to actuate compliant scaffolds. Such devices typically use biocompatible synthetic polymers as compliant scaffolds, which require additional processing steps to promote cellular alignment and attachment. Instead, electrocompacted and aligned collagen (ELAC) can be used as a completely organic scaffold, requiring no additional processing steps, with alignment being innately promoted by the topography. Locomotive living machines have been fabricated in this study using ELAC scaffolds. Devices have been produced using either primary cardiomyocytes or primary skeletal muscle cells isolated from chick embryos as actuators. When tested under the same conditions, skeletal muscle cell powered devices were approximately an order of magnitude faster, having a mean velocity of 77.6 ± 86.4 µm/min, compared to 9.34 ± 6.69 µm/min for cardiomyocyte powered devices. In conclusion, completely organic living mac...

Simulation and Fabrication of Stronger, Larger, and Faster Walking Biohybrid Machines

“…Impressive breakthroughs have been achieved using self‐contractile tissue, to engineer pumps and structures capable of locomotion . However, the ability to modulate contractions for controlled outputs and functions has made engineering of skeletal muscle biohybrid actuators a central focus of the field . Furthermore, skeletal muscle provides the possibility of engineering motor neuronal circuitry capable of controlling contractile output to a higher degree.…”

Organismal engineering: Toward a robotic taxonomic key for devices using organic materials

“…Organic structures can also be used to not only promote cellular attachment, but also cause cellular alignment. By using electrocompacted and aligned collagen (ELAC) sheets as a structure for both cardiomyocyte and skeletal muscle cell-seeded robots, Webster et al fabricated self-assembling devices capable of crawling (21). The use of ELAC as a structure for completely organic robots has many advantages over synthetic polymers.…”

“…Skeletal muscle has also been used for fabricating cell-powered devices. Skeletal muscle cells have been shown to produce faster locomotion as compared to cardiomyocytes when both are seeded on the same type of device (21). Development of skeletal muscle cell-powered devices has, in many ways, mirrored that of cardiomyocyte-powered devices, with early efforts making use of skeletal myotubes cultured on cantilevers (37–40).…”

“…). Furthermore, Webster et al created completely organic multi-legged devices powered by skeletal muscle cells using electrocompacted collagen structures (21). During fabrication, the collagen molecules were compacted into a robust sheet and aligned along the leg axis of the device.…”

“…Deflection of the pillars allows the contraction force to be calculated (43). D: A completely organic device using electrocompacted and aligned collagen as a substrate (21).…”