Application of Temporary, Cell‐Containing Alginate Microcarriers to Facilitate the Fabrication of Spatially Defined Cell Pockets in 3D Collagen Hydrogels

Abstract

Mimicking the complexity of natural tissue is a major challenge in the field of tissue engineering. Here, a facile 2‐step fabrication method to prepare 3D constructs with distinct regions of high cell concentrations and without the need for elaborate equipment is proposed. The initial incorporation of cells in a sacrificial alginate matrix allows the addition of other, cell relevant biopolymers, such as, collagen to form a spatially confined, interpenetrating network at the microscale. A layered structure at the macroscale can be achieved by incorporating these cell‐containing microspheres in thin collagen layers. Cells are locally released by de‐gelling the alginate matrix and their attachment to the collagen hydrogel layers has been studied. The use of the murine pre‐osteoblast cell line MC3T3‐E1 as an example cell line shows that the cells behave differently in their cell migration pattern based on the initial composition of the alginate microspheres.

Microfluidic Droplet‐Based Tailorable Porous GelMA Microspheres for 3D Spatio Controllable Cell Coculture

“…Thankfully, in another investigation, cells were successfully encapsulated inside the holes of the porous collagen scaffolds using transient calcium alginate microcarriers (650 ± 42 μm) bear-ing placeholders. [16] Tragically, the central tissue of the 8.5 mmdiameter globules may necrotize because the cells there may be undernourished and hypoxic. Additionally, the excessive collagen construction time that results in an uneven distribution of cells in the collagen scaffold hinders spatio-controlled heterogeneous cell coculture.…”

Physicochemical Changes of Alginate and Polyacrylate Mixture Induced by Interactions of the Appended Units

“…Functional polymers based on cyclodextrin have been DOI: 10.1002/macp.202200444 designed and studied reported in time highlighting the enhancement of encapsulation and release ability, the improvement of mechanical characteristics, biodegradability, [1][2][3] Alg is an anionic polysaccharide that is generally used in biomedical and pharmaceutical applications due to its biodegradability, nontoxicity, biocompatibility, low immunogenicity, etc. [4][5][6][7] A number of studies reported on the synthesis of Alg modified with cyclodextrin units. [8][9][10] Studies in this field have shown that, the binding of CD to the Alg chain can generate large supramolecular assemblies through host-guest interactions and can improve the properties of polymeric systems which has been exploited in pharmaceutical domain.…”