Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 105, Issue 28, Pages 9522-9527Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0801866105
Keywords
bottom-up; hydrogel; microscale engineering; biomimetic
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We present a bottom-up approach to direct the assembly of cell-laden microgels to generate tissue constructs with tunable microarchitecture and complexity. This assembly process is driven by the tendency of multiphase liquid-liquid systems to minimize the surface area and the resulting surface free energy between the phases. We demonstrate that shape-controlled microgels spontaneously assemble within multiphase reactor systems into predetermined geometric configurations. Furthermore, we characterize the parameters that influence the assembly process, such as external energy input, surface tension, and microgel dimensions. Finally, we show that multicomponent cell-laden constructs could be generated by assembling microgel building blocks and performing a secondary cross-linking reaction. This bottom-up approach for the directed assembly of cell-laden microgels provides a powerful and highly scalable approach to form biomimetic 3D tissue constructs and opens a paradigm for directing the assembly of mesoscale materials.
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