Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, and current treatments are ineffective or unavailable to majority of patients. Engineered cardiac tissue (ECT) is a promising treatment to restore function to the damaged myocardium; however, for these treatments to become a reality, tissue fabrication must be amenable to scalable production and be used in suspension culture. Here, we have developed a low‐cost and scalable emulsion‐based method for producing ECT microspheres from poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)–fibrinogen encapsulated mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). Cell‐laden microspheres were formed via water‐in‐oil emulsification; encapsulation occurred by suspending the cells in hydrogel precursor solution at cell densities from 5 to 60 million cells/ml, adding to mineral oil and vortexing. Microsphere diameters ranged from 30 to 570 μm; size variability was decreased by the addition of 2% poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate. Initial cell encapsulation density impacted the ability for mESCs to grow and differentiate, with the greatest success occurring at higher cell densities. Microspheres differentiated into dense spheroidal ECTs with spontaneous contractions occurring as early as Day 10 of cardiac differentiation; furthermore, these ECT microspheres exhibited appropriate temporal changes in gene expression and response to pharmacological stimuli. These results demonstrate the ability to use an emulsion approach to encapsulate pluripotent stem cells for use in microsphere‐based cardiac differentiation.
This study establishes a novel microfluidic platform for rapid encapsulation of cells at high densities in photocrosslinkable microspherical hydrogels including poly(ethylene glycol)‐diacrylate, poly(ethylene glycol)‐fibrinogen, and gelatin methacrylate. Cell‐laden hydrogel microspheres are advantageous for many applications from drug screening to regenerative medicine. Employing microfluidic systems is considered the most efficient method for scale‐up production of uniform microspheres. However, existing platforms have been constrained by traditional microfabrication techniques for device fabrication, restricting microsphere diameter to below 200 µm and making iterative design changes time‐consuming and costly. Using a new molding technique, the microfluidic device employs a modified T‐junction design with readily adjustable channel sizes, enabling production of highly uniform microspheres with cell densities (10–60 million cells mL−1) and a wide range of diameters (300–1100 µm), which are critical for realizing downstream applications, through rapid photocrosslinking (≈1 s per microsphere). Multiple cell types are encapsulated at rates of up to 1 million cells per min, are evenly distributed throughout the microspheres, and maintain high viability and appropriate cellular activities in long‐term culture. This microfluidic encapsulation platform is a valuable and readily adoptable tool for numerous applications, including supporting injectable cell therapy, bioreactor‐based cell expansion and differentiation, and high throughput tissue sphere‐based drug testing assays.
more » « less- PAR ID:
- 10460101
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Small
- Volume:
- 15
- Issue:
- 47
- ISSN:
- 1613-6810
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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