Current advances in microsphere based cell culture and tissue engineering

Dual‐Controlled Release of Icariin/Mg2+ from Biodegradable Microspheres and Their Synergistic Upregulation Effect on Bone Regeneration

“…Cell microcarriers based on biodegradable microspheres have been highlighted recently, due to their strong flexibility in functionalization in addition to easy preparation and injectability. [ 28 ] For BTE, the incorporation of osteoinductive ingredients (e.g., GFs, drugs, and bioactive ions) into the microspheres is attractive, [ 29 ] which is expected to provide controlled release of these bioactive factors to effectively induce bone regeneration. [ 30 ] Combination of different osteoinductive ingredients into one design is a common way to achieve synergetic effects on enhancing osteogenesis [ 26b ] because many studies have proved that one single osteoinductive factor is not efficient enough to regenerate bone defects in satisfactory modes.…”

Microgel assembly: Fabrication, characteristics and application in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

“…4 ). For the first category, cells are often pre-mixed evenly with hydrogel precursor solution, then the mixture is either photo-patterned or emulsified into microgels, and finally the crosslinked cell-laden microgels are assembled into macroscale constructs [ 13 , 40 ]. Due to the presence of live cells, the microgel fabrication and assembling process should be fast, cytocompatible and nontoxic, indicating the limited choice of microgel materials and gelation/assembly methods [ 74 ].…”

“…However, encapsulation of cells in microgel assembly mimics the native 3D cellular microenvironment and thus is especially useful for in vivo applications in which cell-laden microgels can be delivered via a minimally invasive means to the defect area and assembled locally without suffering from the fatal shearing force and host immune system attack [ 75 ]. In contrast, the second category (culturing cells on the surface of microgel assembly) provides an alternative method for in vitro cell culture that shows several advantages over the conventional 2D culture [ 13 ]. Owing to the significantly higher surface-to-volume ratio of microgels, a greater number of cells can be cultured on the surface of microgel assembly using a small volume of culture media.…”

“…In addition, microgel assembly also shows unique superiority in mimicking the natural tissue structures. As well known, many tissues comprise repeated 3D cellular microstructures (or namely, basic functional modules), such as lobule in the liver, nephron in the kidney and islet in the pancreas [ 13 ]. Tissue functionality arises from the ordered spatial alignment and distribution of these microstructures.…”

<p>Growth Factor and Its Polymer Scaffold-Based Delivery System for Cartilage Tissue Engineering</p>

“…94 When growth factor loaded MPs immobilize onto the scaffolds, they can show an advantage in controlling release kinetics of single or multiple growth factors spatially and temporally without altering the scaffold structure. 95 Numerous natural polymers, including gelatin, collagen, chitosan, hyaluronic acid, alginate and silk, have good biocompatibility, and so have been widely applied to fabricate MPs delivering growth factors for cartilage tissue engineering. [96][97][98][99][100] Gelatin, a representative natural material derived from collagen type I, is an example that has successfully been used to incorporate TGF-β1 for enhancing the chondrogenic differentiation of human periosteum derived cells.…”