Cellulose-based hydrogels with excellent microstructural replication ability and cytocompatibility for microfluidic devi
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Cellulose-based hydrogels with excellent microstructural replication ability and cytocompatibility for microfluidic devices Ying Pei • Xueying Wang • Weihua Huang Pan Liu • Lina Zhang
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Received: 14 February 2013 / Accepted: 18 April 2013 / Published online: 30 April 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract In the face of challenges in the development of excellent biocompatible materials for microfluidic device fabrication, we demonstrated that cross-linked cellulose (RCC) hydrogel can be used as the bulk material for microchips. The cellulose hydrogel was prepared from cellulose solution dissolved in an 8 wt% LiOH/15 wt% urea aqueous system with cooling by crosslinking with epichlorohydrin. Collagen as a key extracellular matrix component for promoting cell cultivation was cross-linked in the cellulose hydrogel to obtain cellulose–collagen (RCC/C) hybrid hydrogels. The experimental results revealed that cellulose-based hydrogel microchips with well-defined 2D or 3D microstructures possessed excellent structural replication ability, good mechanical properties, and cytocompatibility for cell culture as well as excellent dimensional stability at elevated temperature. The hydrogel, as a transparent microchip material, had no effect on the fluorescence behaviors of FITC-dextran and rhodamine-dextran, leading to the good conjunction with fluorescent detection and
Ying Pei and Xueying Wang contributed equally to this paper.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10570-013-9930-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Y. Pei X. Wang W. Huang P. Liu L. Zhang (&) Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected]
imaging. Moreover, collagen could be immobilized in the RCC/C hydrogel scaffold for promoting cell growth and generating stable chemical concentration gradients, leading to superior cytocompatibility. This work provides new hydrogel materials for the microfluidic technology field and mimicks a 3D cell culture microenvironment for cell-based tissue engineering and drug screening. Keywords Cellulose–collagen hydrogel Structural replication ability Microfluidic devices 3D cell culture Dimensional stability at elevated temperature
Introduction Microfluidics is the technology and science of designing and manufacturing devices that process or manipulate small volumes (10-9–10-18 l) of fluids (Whitesides 2006), and it has potential for unique application in biomedical analysis and tissue engineering. Especially for the construction of cell microenvironments, the utilization of microfluidic technology has particular advantages and potentials (Rowat et al. 2009). This kind of bio-microfluidic system should have the capacity to support the culturing of cell populations in an environment with fluid flow and physical properties approximating those of native tissues (Bettinger and Borenstein 2010), bringing forward new requireme
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