Issue 9, 2019

An integrated microfluidic flow-focusing platform for on-chip fabrication and filtration of cell-laden microgels

Abstract

We present the development of a stable continuous, and integrated microfluidic platform for the high-throughput fabrication of monodisperse cell-laden microgel droplets with high and maintained cellular viability. This is through combining onto one chip all the required processes from the droplet generation in a flow focusing microfluidic junction passing through on-chip photocrosslinking to the separation of the droplets from the continuous oil phase. To avoid cellular aggregation during the droplet generation process, cells were treated with bovine serum albumin (BSA) before mixing with gelatin methacrylate (GelMA). And, a magnetic mixer was applied to the GelMA prepolymer-cell suspension syringe to eliminate cell sedimentation. These approaches resulted in having a reasonable distribution of cells among monodisperse microdroplets. The microdroplets were irradiated with a 405 nm wavelength laser beam while passing through the crosslinking chamber of the microfluidic device. The produced microgels enter the filtration unit of the same device where they were gently separated from the oil phase into the washing buffer aqueous solution of Tween 80 using the filter microposts array. The viability of the encapsulated cells was around 85% at day 1 and was maintained throughout 5 days. Using this method of controlling cell encapsulation with on-chip crosslinking and oil filtration, highly efficient cell-laden microgel production is achieved. The presented integrated microfluidic platform can be a candidate for standard cell-encapsulation experiments and other tissue engineering applications.

Graphical abstract: An integrated microfluidic flow-focusing platform for on-chip fabrication and filtration of cell-laden microgels

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 Jan 2019
Accepted
13 Mar 2019
First published
13 Mar 2019

Lab Chip, 2019,19, 1621-1632

An integrated microfluidic flow-focusing platform for on-chip fabrication and filtration of cell-laden microgels

M. G. A. Mohamed, S. Kheiri, S. Islam, H. Kumar, A. Yang and K. Kim, Lab Chip, 2019, 19, 1621 DOI: 10.1039/C9LC00073A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements