Optoelectrofluidic printing system for fabricating hydrogel sheets with on-demand patterned cells and microparticles

Abstract

This paper presents a novel optoelectrofluidic printing system that facilitates not only the optoelectrofluidic patterning of microparticles and mammalian cells but also the harvesting of the patterned microparticles encapsulated within poly(ethylene glycol) dicarylate (PEGDA) hydrogel sheets. Although optoelectrofluidic technology has numerous advantages for programmable and on-demand patterning and the feasibility of manipulating single microparticles, practical applications using existing laboratory infrastructure in biological and clinical research fields have been strictly restricted due to the impossibility of recovering the final patterned product. In order to address these harvesting limitations, PEGDA was employed to utilize optoelectrofluidic printing. The Clausius-Mossotti factor was calculated to investigate the dielectrophoretic mobility of the microparticle and the cell in the PEGDA precursor solution. As a proof of concept, three basic controllabilities of the optoelectrofluidic printing system were characterized: the number of microparticles, the distance between the microparticle columns, and the ratio of two different microparticles. Furthermore, the optoelectrofluidic patterning and printing of human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2) were demonstrated in 5 min with a single-cell level of resolution. The appropriate ranges of frequency were experimentally defined based on the calculated result of the dielectrophoretic mobility of HepG2 cells. Finally, optoelectrofluidically cell-patterned hydrogel sheets were successfully recovered under a highly viable physiological condition.

Optoelectronic tweezers: a versatile toolbox for nano-/micro-manipulation

“…Apart from the direct assembly of cell-containing hydrogel microbeads, a more easy-to-use cell patterning technique is developed based on an OET and a UV-curable poly(ethylene glycol) dicarylate (PEGDA) hydrogel. 217 In this work, OET was used to pattern the cells in PEGDA hydrogel, which was later polymerized using UV light. After UV polymerization, a hydrogel sheet with an encapsulated cell pattern was formed, which can be used for drug screening and tissue engineering.…”

Biofabrication Using Electrochemical Devices and Systems

“…In the future, we expect DEP‐based BPE systems to be widely used for the fabrication of cell aggregates, because the BPE devices are simpler than the individual electrode array. Additionally, optically induced DEP was also used for cell patterning 68. This on‐demand and programmable manipulation technique has the advantage.…”

Optoelectrokinetics-based microfluidic platform for bioapplications: A review of recent advances

“…[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] OEK has also been found to be efficient for applications in immunology sciences, [38][39][40] nanosensors, 41,42 blood analysis and detection, 43,44 and biomedical and bioengineering. 45,46 Allowing direct optical addressing of micro/nano-objects by optically-projected images that act as virtual electrodes, the OEK-based microfluidics technique offers the following advantages over other competing techniques:…”