On-Chip Construction of Multilayered Hydrogel Microtubes for Engineered Vascular-Like Microstructures
by
Tao Yue 1,*, Na Liu 1,*, Yuanyuan Liu 1, Yan Peng 1, Shaorong Xie 1, Jun Luo 1, Qiang Huang 2,3, Masaru Takeuchi 4 and Toshio Fukuda 2,3,4,5
Tao Yue 1,*, Na Liu 1,*, Yuanyuan Liu 1, Yan Peng 1, Shaorong Xie 1, Jun Luo 1, Qiang Huang 2,3, Masaru Takeuchi 4 and Toshio Fukuda 2,3,4,5
1
School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
2
School of Mechatronic Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100281, China
3
Key Laboratory of Biomimetic Robots and Systems, Ministry of Education of China, Beijing 100281, China
4
Department of Micro-Nano Systems Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan
5
Faculty of Science and Engineering, Meijo University, Nagoya 468-8503, Japan
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Micromachines 2019, 10(12), 840; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi10120840
Received: 16 November 2019 / Revised: 27 November 2019 / Accepted: 30 November 2019 / Published: 1 December 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidics for Soft Matter and Mechanobiology
)
Multilayered and multicellular structures are indispensable for constructing functional artificial tissues. Engineered vascular-like microstructures with multiple layers are promising structures to be functionalized as artificial blood vessels. In this paper, we present an efficient method to construct multilayer microtubes embedding different microstructures based on direct fabrication and assembly inside a microfluidic device. This four-layer microfluidic device has two separate inlets for fabricating various microstructures. We have achieved alternating-layered microtubes by controlling the fabrication, flow, and assembly time of each microstructure, and as well, double-layered microtubes have been built by a two-step assembly method. Modifications of both the inner and outer layers was successfully demonstrated, and the flow conditions during the on-chip assembly were evaluated and optimized. Each microtube was successfully constructed within several minutes, showing the potential applications of the presented method for building engineered vascular-like microstructures with high efficiency.
Keywords:
microfluidic devices; on-chip fabrication; hydrogel; microfluidic assembly; multilayered microstructures
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Yue, T.; Liu, N.; Liu, Y.; Peng, Y.; Xie, S.; Luo, J.; Huang, Q.; Takeuchi, M.; Fukuda, T. On-Chip Construction of Multilayered Hydrogel Microtubes for Engineered Vascular-Like Microstructures. Micromachines 2019, 10, 840.
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