Dataset Information

3D Hydrogels Containing Interconnected Microchannels of Subcellular Size for Capturing Human Pathogenic Acanthamoeba Castellanii.

ABSTRACT: Porous hydrogel scaffolds are ideal candidates for mimicking cellular microenvironments, regarding both structural and mechanical aspects. We present a novel strategy to use uniquely designed ceramic networks as templates for generating hydrogels with a network of interconnected pores in the form of microchannels. The advantages of this new approach are the high and guaranteed interconnectivity of the microchannels, as well as the possibility to produce channels with diameters smaller than 7 ?m. Neither of these assets can be ensured with other established techniques. Experiments using the polyacrylamide substrates produced with our approach have shown that the migration of human pathogenic Acanthamoeba castellanii trophozoites is manipulated by the microchannel structure in the hydrogels. The parasites can even be captured inside the microchannel network and removed from their incubation medium by the porous polyacrylamide, indicating the huge potential of our new technique for medical, pharmaceutical, and tissue engineering applications.

SUBMITTER: Gutekunst SB

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6457568 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

3D Hydrogels Containing Interconnected Microchannels of Subcellular Size for Capturing Human Pathogenic <i>Acanthamoeba Castellanii</i>.

Gutekunst Sören B SB Siemsen Katharina K Huth Steven S Möhring Anneke A Hesseler Britta B Timmermann Michael M Paulowicz Ingo I Mishra Yogendra Kumar YK Siebert Leonard L Adelung Rainer R Selhuber-Unkel Christine C

ACS biomaterials science & engineering 20190110 4

Porous hydrogel scaffolds are ideal candidates for mimicking cellular microenvironments, regarding both structural and mechanical aspects. We present a novel strategy to use uniquely designed ceramic networks as templates for generating hydrogels with a network of interconnected pores in the form of microchannels. The advantages of this new approach are the high and guaranteed interconnectivity of the microchannels, as well as the possibility to produce channels with diameters smaller than 7 μm. ...[more]

PMID: 30984820

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Project description:Hydrogels allow for controlling the diffusion rate and amount of solute according to the hydrogel network and thus have found many applications in drug delivery, biomaterials, toxicology, and tissue engineering. This paper describes a 3D-printed microfluidic chip for the straightforward partitioning of hydrogel barriers between microchannels. We use a previously-reported 3-channel architecture whereby the middle channel is filled with a hydrogel - acting like a porous barrier for diffusive transport - and the two side channels act as sink and source; the middle channel communicates with the side channels via orthogonal, small capillary channels that are also responsible for partitioning the hydrogel during filling. Our 3D-printed microfluidic chip is simple to fabricate by stereolithography (SL), inexpensive, reproducible, and convenient, so it is more adequate for transport studies than a microchip fabricated by photolithographic procedures. The chip was fabricated in a resin made of poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEG-DA) (MW = 258) (PEG-DA-258). The SL process allowed us to print high aspect ratio (37 : 1) capillary channels (27 μm-width and 1 mm-height) and enable the trapping of liquid-phase hydrogels in the hydrogel barrier middle channel. We studied the permeability of hydrogel barriers made of PEG-DA (MW = 700) (PEG-DA-700, 10% polymer content by wt. in water) - as a model of photopolymerizable barriers - and agarose (MW = 120 000, 2% polymer content by wt. in water) - as a model of thermally-gelled barriers. We measured the diffusion of fluorescein, 10k-dextran-Alexa 680 and BSA-Texas Red through these barriers. Fluorescein diffusion was observed through both 10% PEG-DA-700 and 2% agarose barriers while 10k-dextran-Alexa 680 and BSA-Texas Red diffused appreciably only through the 2% agarose hydrogel barrier. Our microfluidic chip facilitates the tuning of such barriers simply by altering the hydrogel materials. The straightforward trapping of selective barriers in 3D-printed microchannels should find wide applicability in drug delivery, tissue engineering, cell separation, and organ-on-a-chip platforms.

Dataset Information

3D Hydrogels Containing Interconnected Microchannels of Subcellular Size for Capturing Human Pathogenic Acanthamoeba Castellanii.

Publications

3D Hydrogels Containing Interconnected Microchannels of Subcellular Size for Capturing Human Pathogenic <i>Acanthamoeba Castellanii</i>.

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