Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE, Canada.
Departments of Chemistry, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE, Canada; Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE, Canada; Nautilus Biosciences, Charlottetown, PE, Canada.
Anal Chim Acta. 2019 Apr 11;1053:1-21. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2018.12.056. Epub 2019 Jan 12.
Microencapsulation of living cells is a field that has been heavily investigated by many researchers over the past two decades. Numerous experimental setups have been developed to encapsulate living cells in microbeads using different microfluidic devices and materials. Previous studies have investigated different microfluidic devices and materials for use in cancer treatment, drug delivery, environmental remediation, food production, and cell culture contexts. Some of the current challenges to these setups are maintaining reasonable levels of cell viability, cell leaching, nutrient and oxygen diffusion, and ensuring uniform microbead shape and size distribution. Addressing these issues and identifying the most reproducible and convenient setup enables researchers to efficiently encapsulate living cells and further advance the biomedical field. The efficiency of microencapsulation in terms of cell viability and uniform microbead shape and size distribution are directly related to the type of device used and the cross-linking method applied. Hence, the focus of this review is to assess the effects of using T-junction, flow-focusing, and co-flow microfluidic devices as well as thermal, ionic, and photo cross-linking methods for the microencapsulation of living cells. Recent applications of bacteria microencapsulation using microfluidic systems since 2017 are presented.
微囊化活细胞是过去二十年来许多研究人员深入研究的领域。已经开发了许多实验装置，使用不同的微流控器件和材料将活细胞封装在微珠中。先前的研究已经研究了不同的微流控器件和材料，用于癌症治疗、药物输送、环境修复、食品生产和细胞培养等领域。这些设置目前面临的一些挑战包括保持合理的细胞活力水平、细胞浸出、营养物质和氧气扩散，以及确保均匀的微珠形状和尺寸分布。解决这些问题并确定最具可重复性和便利性的设置，使研究人员能够有效地封装活细胞，并进一步推进生物医学领域的发展。微囊化的效率，包括细胞活力和均匀的微珠形状和尺寸分布，与所使用的设备类型和应用的交联方法直接相关。因此，本综述的重点是评估 T 型 Junction、流聚焦和共流微流控设备以及热、离子和光交联方法在活细胞微囊化中的应用效果。介绍了自 2017 年以来使用微流控系统进行细菌微囊化的最新应用。
