Grein-Iankovski Aline, de Oliveira Braga Karina Andrighetti, Legendre Daniel Formariz, Cardoso Paulo Francisco Guerreiro, Loh Watson
Institute of Chemistry, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas 13083-970, SP, Brazil.
Instituto do Coração, Hospital das Clinicas HCFMUSP, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo 01246-903, SP, Brazil.
Bioengineering (Basel). 2024 Mar 7;11(3):261. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering11030261.
Cilia are biological structures essential to drive the mobility of secretions and maintain the proper function of the respiratory airways. However, this motile self-cleaning process is significantly compromised in the presence of silicone tracheal prosthesis, leading to biofilm growth and impeding effective treatment. To address this challenge and enhance the performance of these devices, we propose the fabrication of magnetic silicone cilia, with the prospect of their integration onto silicone prostheses. The present study presents a fabrication method based on magnetic self-assembly and assesses the interaction behavior of the cilia array with biological mucus. This protocol allows for the customization of cilia dimensions across a wide range of aspect ratios (from 6 to 85) and array densities (from 10 to 80 cilia/mm) by adjusting the fabrication parameters, offering flexibility for adjustments according to their required characteristics. Furthermore, we evaluated the suitability of different cilia arrays for biomedical applications by analyzing their interaction with bullfrog mucus, simulating the airways environment. Our findings demonstrate that the fabricated cilia are mechanically resistant to the viscous fluid and still exhibit controlled movement under the influence of an external moving magnet. A correlation between cilia dimensions and mucus wettability profile suggests a potential role in facilitating mucus depuration, paving the way for further advancements aimed at enhancing the performance of silicone prostheses in clinical settings.
纤毛是驱动分泌物移动和维持呼吸道正常功能所必需的生物结构。然而，在使用硅胶气管假体的情况下，这种主动自清洁过程会受到显著影响，导致生物膜生长并阻碍有效治疗。为应对这一挑战并提高这些装置的性能，我们提出制造磁性硅胶纤毛，并有望将其集成到硅胶假体上。本研究提出了一种基于磁性自组装的制造方法，并评估了纤毛阵列与生物黏液的相互作用行为。该方案通过调整制造参数，能够在宽范围的长宽比（从6到85）和阵列密度（从10到80根纤毛/毫米）内定制纤毛尺寸，为根据所需特性进行调整提供了灵活性。此外，我们通过分析不同纤毛阵列与牛蛙黏液的相互作用（模拟气道环境），评估了它们在生物医学应用中的适用性。我们的研究结果表明，制造出的纤毛对黏性流体具有机械抗性，并且在外部移动磁铁的影响下仍能表现出可控运动。纤毛尺寸与黏液润湿性之间的相关性表明，其在促进黏液净化方面具有潜在作用，为进一步提高硅胶假体在临床环境中的性能铺平了道路。
