One-stop microfiber spinning and fabrication of a fibrous cell-encapsulated scaffold on a single microfluidic platform

Abstract

This paper provides a method for microscale fiber spinning and the in situ construction of a 3D fibrous scaffold on a single microfluidic platform. This platform was also used to fabricate a variety of fibrous scaffolds with diverse compositions without the use of complicated devices. We explored the potential utility of the fibrous scaffolds for tissue engineering applications by constructing a fibrous scaffold encapsulating primary hepatocytes. The cells in scaffold were cultured over seven days and maintained higher viability comparing with 3D alginate non-fibrous block. The main advantage of this platform is that the fibrous structure used to form a scaffold can be generated without damaging the mechanically weak alginate fibers or encapsulated cells because all procedures are performed in a single platform without the intervention of the operator. In addition, the proposed fibrous scaffold permitted high diffusion capability of molecules, which enabled better viability of encapsulated cells than non-fibrous scaffold even in massive cell culture.

High-water-absorbing calcium alginate fibrous scaffold fabricated by microfluidic spinning for use in chronic wound dressings

“…[19][20][21][22] Many research groups (such as S. H. Lee, J. Qin, Q. Liang, et al) have proposed and used microuidic spinning to fabricate a series of bers with varying morphologies, which broadens the applications of microuidic chips. [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] For instance, Jun et al (2014) encapsulated cells in bers by microuidic spinning to fabricate a bottom-up biomedical porous material for tissueengineering studies. [24][25][26][27][28][29] In addition, Yu et al (2014) fabricated an encodable biomimetic bamboo-like hybrid microber, while Xie et al (2018) fabricated necklace-like microbers using microuidic spinning and developed other tissue-engineering applications for these bers by integrating them with various types of cells and growth factors.…”

Glucose diffusivity in cell-seeded tissue engineering scaffolds

“…The morphological structure of the scaffolds (e.g., pore size and shape distribution, average porosity, tortuosity, and others) has a significant effect on solute transport processes (Wu et al 2010;Park et al 2014;Chao and Das 2015). For example, increasing the cell mass grown in scaffolds decreases the O 2 diffusivity with increasing tissue formation within a tissue engineering scaffold (Kang et al 2011).…”

Microscale Cell Encapsulation Materials and Fabrication Techniques for Type 1 Diabetes

“…Microfibers hold several specific advantages over microbeads and microsheets. They are easy to handle and can be readily used to build a porous 3D scaffold [61]. In contrast to wet spinning, in which the crosslinking agent is added to a bath [62], microfluidic spinning forms microfibers via the coaxial flow of polymer solution and crosslinking agent in a microchannel [63].…”