Liu Yanting, Yang Yuanyuan, Shen Yajing
Department of Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen 518055, China.
ACS Biomater Sci Eng. 2019 Nov 11;5(11):6281-6289. doi: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.9b01077. Epub 2019 Oct 22.
The tubularlike three-dimensional tissue scaffold is an important architecture in biomedical engineering, but its construction remains a big challenge for existing techniques. This work reports the polysaccharide-biomaterial-based tubular microcapsule, which was fabricated by integrating a co-axial flow microfluidic chip and a polyelectrolyte complex technique. First, we fabricate the densely packed coiled calcium alginate hydrogel microfibers as the building block by a co-axial microfluid chip. Then, the densely packed coiled microfibers were coated with a multilayer membrane through layer-by-layer adsorption of alginate and chitosan. After that, the microfibers with an alginate-chitosan-alginate membrane were expanded and transformed into a tubular microcapsule structure by liquefaction. The tubular microcapsule exhibits a selectively permeable property of different-molecular-weight FITC-dextran/bovine serum albumin compared with original calcium alginate microfibers. Moreover, the tubular microcapsule with a liquefied lumen and a thin membrane allows the sustainable release of encapsulants under the alkaline environment. Our research paves an alternative way of manufacturing artificial biological tube architectures having potential applications for transporting and delivering drugs.
管状三维组织支架是生物医学工程中的一种重要结构，但其构建对现有技术而言仍是一项巨大挑战。本研究报道了基于多糖生物材料的管状微胶囊，它是通过结合同轴流微流控芯片和聚电解质复合技术制备而成。首先，我们利用同轴微流控芯片制备出紧密堆积的卷曲海藻酸钙水凝胶微纤维作为构建单元。然后，通过海藻酸盐和壳聚糖的逐层吸附，在紧密堆积的卷曲微纤维上包覆多层膜。之后，将具有海藻酸盐-壳聚糖-海藻酸盐膜的微纤维通过液化膨胀并转化为管状微胶囊结构。与原始的海藻酸钙微纤维相比，管状微胶囊对不同分子量的异硫氰酸荧光素-葡聚糖/牛血清白蛋白具有选择性渗透特性。此外，具有液化内腔和薄膜的管状微胶囊能够在碱性环境下实现封装剂的持续释放。我们的研究为制造具有运输和递送药物潜在应用的人工生物管结构开辟了一条新途径。
