Varying the Stiffness and Diffusivity of Rod‐Shaped Microgels Independently through Their Molecular Building Blocks

Abstract

Microgels are water‐swollen, crosslinked polymers that are widely used as colloidal building blocks in scaffold materials for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Microgels can be controlled in their stiffness, degree of swelling, and mesh size depending on their polymer architecture, crosslink density, and fabrication method – all of which influence their function and interaction with the environment. Currently, there is a lack of understanding of how the polymer composition influences the internal structure of soft microgels and how this morphology affects specific biomedical applications. In this report, we systematically vary the architecture and molar mass of polyethylene glycol‐acrylate (PEG‐Ac) precursors, as well as their concentration and combination, to gain insight in the different parameters that affect the internal structure of rod‐shaped microgels. We characterize the mechanical properties and diffusivity, as well as the conversion of acrylate groups during photopolymerization, in both bulk hydrogels and microgels produced from the PEG‐Ac precursors. Furthermore, we investigate cell‐microgel interaction, and we observe improved cell spreading on microgels with more accessible RGD peptide and with a stiffness in a range of 20 kPa to 50 kPa lead to better cell growth.

Optimization of a tunable process for rapid production of calcium phosphate microparticles using a droplet-based microfluidic platform

“…This also minimizes the batch-to-batch variation in terms of particle size. Additionally, generating multicomponent particles, for example, in core-shell or Janus forms ( Huang et al, 2023a ; Long et al, 2023 ; Wu et al, 2024 ), and to some extent, controlling particle shape ( Cai et al, 2021 ; Huang et al, 2023a ; Kittel et al, 2023 ; Long et al, 2023 ) can also be achieved with some droplet microfluidic systems. Another advantage lies in the ability of such systems to produce large numbers of individual microparticles per time unit ( Guttenplan et al, 2021a ).…”