Wang Qiao, Wang Chong, Fang Zhonglin, Zhang Zhuohao, Zhao Ye, Ma Teng, Shang Luoran
Shanghai Xuhui Central Hospital, Zhongshan-Xuhui Hospital, and the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Medical Epigenetics, The International Co-laboratory of Medical Epigenetics and Metabolism (Ministry of Science and Technology), Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China.
Department of Gastroenterology, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2025 Aug;12(32):e06556. doi: 10.1002/advs.202506556. Epub 2025 Jun 4.
Optical barcodes are versatile information carriers widely applied for encryption, commercial anti-counterfeiting, and biomedical fields. Hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC), as a natural derivative, exhibits excellent biocompatibility and can self-assemble into cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) with structure color. However, the high viscosity of HPC CLCs is a huge hurdle for material processing and thus limits their applications. In this study, a high-speed revolving microfluidic platform is developed for emulsifying high-viscosity methacrylate functionalized HPC (HPC-MA) solution to form droplets. HPC-MA molecules in the droplets can self-assemble into CLCs by water evaporation, and the resultant CLCs droplets can be cross-linked to form structural color barcode particles. The prepared HPC-MA CLCs barcoded particles exhibit well-defined and adjustable encoding information while maintaining excellent biocompatibility. Furthermore, the prepared barcode particles also demonstrate great potential in 3D cell culture and multiplex immunoassays. This work introduces an efficient way to continuously produce HPC-MA CLCs barcode particles with finely tunable size and uniformity. Such barcode particles are promising for widespread applications in bioanalysis and biodiagnostics.
光学条形码是一种多功能信息载体，广泛应用于加密、商业防伪和生物医学领域。羟丙基纤维素（HPC）作为一种天然衍生物，具有优异的生物相容性，能够自组装成具有结构色的胆甾相液晶（CLC）。然而，HPC CLCs的高粘度对材料加工来说是一个巨大的障碍，因此限制了它们的应用。在本研究中，开发了一种高速旋转微流控平台，用于乳化高粘度的甲基丙烯酸酯功能化HPC（HPC-MA）溶液以形成液滴。液滴中的HPC-MA分子可通过水蒸发自组装成CLC，所得的CLC液滴可交联形成结构色条形码颗粒。制备的HPC-MA CLCs条形码颗粒在保持优异生物相容性的同时，展现出明确且可调节的编码信息。此外，制备的条形码颗粒在3D细胞培养和多重免疫分析中也显示出巨大潜力。这项工作引入了一种有效的方法来连续生产尺寸精细可调且均匀性良好的HPC-MA CLCs条形码颗粒。这种条形码颗粒在生物分析和生物诊断中具有广泛应用前景。
