Multi-Compartmental Hydrogel Microparticles Fabricated by Combination of Sequential Electrospinning and Photopatterning

Multi-compartmental non-spherical hydrogel microparticles were fabricated by combining electrospinning and photopatterning. Sequential electrospinning produced multi-layered fiber matrices with different composition in which each layer became a compartment of the particle. Photopatterning of the hydrogel in the presence of the multilayered fiber matrix generated multi-compartmental microparticles with different vertical functionalities. While the shapes of the hydrogel microparticles were determined by the design of the photomask, the chemical properties and size of each compartment were independently controlled by changing the molecules incorporated into each fiber matrix and the electrospinning times, respectively. The resultant multi-compartmental hydrogel microparticles could carry out not only the release of different growth factors with independent kinetics but also binding of multiple targets at different compartments.