Liu Yuanyue
National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, South China University of Technology Guangzhou 510006 P. R. China.
Key Laboratory of Biomedical Materials and Engineering of the Ministry of Education, South China University of Technology Guangzhou 510006 P. R. China.
RSC Adv. 2019 Jun 4;9(31):17623-17630. doi: 10.1039/c9ra02330e.
Preparing monodisperse, reproducible and functionally sophisticated microparticles is challenging but important for biomedical applications. Droplet microfluidics is a microparticle generation method that can precisely control the geometry and composition of microparticles. Droplet microfluidics generally produces only one type of microparticle at a time. Here, we report a simple and controllable method to simultaneously prepare four distinct types of microparticles by combining droplet generation with a gradient generator. The method can be more widely applied and with higher productivity than other microparticle generation methods due to the integration of dispersed phases which paves the way for the application to regenerative medicine. Different sizes, heterogenous and anisotropic microparticles are generated by manipulating the poly(lactic--glycolic acid) concentration gradient, the poly(ε-caprolactone)/poly(lactic--glycolic acid) ratio gradient, and the dimethyl carbonate/dichloromethane ratio gradient. This straightforward preparation of microparticles will promote their application in drug delivery agents, identifiers for biological assays, microsensors and tissue engineering.
制备单分散、可重复且功能复杂的微粒具有挑战性，但对于生物医学应用而言却很重要。液滴微流控技术是一种微粒生成方法，它能够精确控制微粒的几何形状和组成。液滴微流控技术通常一次只能产生一种类型的微粒。在此，我们报告一种简单且可控的方法，通过将液滴生成与梯度发生器相结合，同时制备四种不同类型的微粒。由于分散相的整合，该方法比其他微粒生成方法具有更广泛的应用和更高的生产率，为再生医学的应用铺平了道路。通过操纵聚（乳酸 - 乙醇酸）浓度梯度、聚（ε - 己内酯）/聚（乳酸 - 乙醇酸）比例梯度以及碳酸二甲酯/二氯甲烷比例梯度，可以生成不同尺寸、异质和各向异性的微粒。这种直接的微粒制备方法将促进其在药物递送剂、生物测定标识符、微传感器和组织工程中的应用。
