Bioinspired Helical Micromotors as Dynamic Cell Microcarriers

Micromotors have exhibited great potential in multidisciplinary nanotechnology, environmental science, and especially biomedical engineering due to their advantages of controllable motion, long lifetime, and high biocompatibility. Marvelous efforts focusing on endowing micromotors with novel characteristics and functionalities to promote their applications in biomedical engineering have been taken in recent years. Here, inspired by the flagellar motion of Escherichia coli, we present helical micromotors as dynamic cell microcarriers using simple microfluidic spinning technology. The morphologies of micromotors can be easily tailored because of the highly controllable and feasible fabrication process including microfluidic generation and manual dicing. Benefiting from the biocompatibility of the materials, the resultant helical micromotors could be ideal cell microcarriers that are suitable for cell seeding and further cultivation; the magnetic nanoparticle encapsulation imparts the helical micromotors with kinetic characteristics in response to mobile magnetic fields. Thus, the helical micromotors could be applied as dynamic cell culture blocks and further assembled to complex geometrical structures. The constructed structures out of cell-seeded micromotors could find practical potential in biomedical applications as the stack-shaped assembly embedded in the hydrogel may be used for tissue repairing and the tube-shaped assembly due to its resemblance to vascular structures in the microchannel for organ-on-a-chip study or blood vessel regeneration. These features manifest the possibility to broaden the biomedical application scope for micromotors

Bioinspired Helical Micromotors as Dynamic Cell Microcarriers

Micromotors have exhibited great potential in multidisciplinary nanotechnology, environmental science, and especially biomedical engineering due to their advantages of controllable motion, long lifetime, and high biocompatibility. Marvelous efforts focusing on endowing micromotors with novel characteristics and functionalities to promote their applications in biomedical engineering have been taken in recent years. Here, inspired by the flagellar motion of Escherichia coli, we present helical micromotors as dynamic cell microcarriers using simple microfluidic spinning technology. The morphologies of micromotors can be easily tailored because of the highly controllable and feasible fabrication process including microfluidic generation and manual dicing. Benefiting from the biocompatibility of the materials, the resultant helical micromotors could be ideal cell microcarriers that are suitable for cell seeding and further cultivation; the magnetic nanoparticle encapsulation imparts the helical micromotors with kinetic characteristics in response to mobile magnetic fields. Thus, the helical micromotors could be applied as dynamic cell culture blocks and further assembled to complex geometrical structures. The constructed structures out of cell-seeded micromotors could find practical potential in biomedical applications as the stack-shaped assembly embedded in the hydrogel may be used for tissue repairing and the tube-shaped assembly due to its resemblance to vascular structures in the microchannel for organ-on-a-chip study or blood vessel regeneration. These features manifest the possibility to broaden the biomedical application scope for micromotors

Egg Component-Composited Inverse Opal Particles for Synergistic Drug Delivery

Microparticles have a demonstrated value in drug delivery systems. The attempts to develop this technology focus on the generation of functional microparticles by using innovative but accessible materials. Here, we present egg component-composited microparticles with a hybrid inverse opal structure for synergistic drug delivery. The egg component inverse opal particles were produced by using egg yolk to negatively replicate colloid crystal bead templates. Because of their huge specific surface areas, abundant nanopores, and complex nanochannels of the inverse opal structure, the resultant egg yolk particles could be loaded with different kinds of drugs, such as hydrophobic camptothecin (CPT), by simply immersing them into the corresponding drug solutions. Attractively, additional drugs, such as the hydrophilic doxorubicin (DOX), could also be encapsulated into the particles through the secondary filling of the drug-doped egg white hydrogel into the egg yolk inverse opal scaffolds, which realized the synergistic drug delivery for the particles. It was demonstrated that the egg-derived inverse opal particles were with large quantity and lasting releasing for the CPT and DOX codelivery, and thus could significantly reduce cell viability, and enhance therapeutic efficacy in treating cancer cells. These features of the egg component-composited inverse opal microparticles indicated that they are ideal microcarriers for drug delivery

Bioinspired Helical Micromotors as Dynamic Cell Microcarriers

Micromotors have exhibited great potential in multidisciplinary nanotechnology, environmental science, and especially biomedical engineering due to their advantages of controllable motion, long lifetime, and high biocompatibility. Marvelous efforts focusing on endowing micromotors with novel characteristics and functionalities to promote their applications in biomedical engineering have been taken in recent years. Here, inspired by the flagellar motion of Escherichia coli, we present helical micromotors as dynamic cell microcarriers using simple microfluidic spinning technology. The morphologies of micromotors can be easily tailored because of the highly controllable and feasible fabrication process including microfluidic generation and manual dicing. Benefiting from the biocompatibility of the materials, the resultant helical micromotors could be ideal cell microcarriers that are suitable for cell seeding and further cultivation; the magnetic nanoparticle encapsulation imparts the helical micromotors with kinetic characteristics in response to mobile magnetic fields. Thus, the helical micromotors could be applied as dynamic cell culture blocks and further assembled to complex geometrical structures. The constructed structures out of cell-seeded micromotors could find practical potential in biomedical applications as the stack-shaped assembly embedded in the hydrogel may be used for tissue repairing and the tube-shaped assembly due to its resemblance to vascular structures in the microchannel for organ-on-a-chip study or blood vessel regeneration. These features manifest the possibility to broaden the biomedical application scope for micromotors

Droplet Microarray on Patterned Butterfly Wing Surfaces for Cell Spheroid Culture

Three-dimensional (3D) cell spheroids have a demonstrated value for in vitro biological research and therapeutics development. Attempts to this technique focus on the development of effective methods for fabricating cell spheroids. Here, inspired by the heterogeneously textured wettability bumps (with hydrophilic peaks and hydrophobic bases) of Stenocara beetle, we present a biotemplated substrate with wettable hydrogel arrays for culturing the cell spheroids. The biotemplates were Morpho butterfly wings with chitin and protein components, which could provide a natural superhydrophobic surface without any modification. The droplet microarrays could be formed for cell spheroid culture on this bioinspired wing substrate by using the hydrogel patterns to hanging droplets. The hanging drop culture method on hydrogel-covered wings has the advantages of high speed, uniform size, and controllable diameter for the formation of 3D cell spheroids. It was demonstrated that drugs produced distinct responses in the 3D cell spheroids compared to conventional two-dimensional cell cultures. As the presented system does not require complex instruments and chemical modifications, our method can simply construct the desired wettability substrates with high biocompatibility for cell culture, drug testing, and other biomedical applications

Cardiomyocyte-Driven Structural Color Actuation in Anisotropic Inverse Opals

Biohybrid actuators composed of living tissues and artificial materials have attracted increasing interest in recent years because of their extraordinary function of dynamically sensing and interacting with complex bioelectrical signals. Here, a compound biohybrid actuator with self-driven actuation and self-reported feedback is designed based on an anisotropic inverse opal substrate with periodical elliptical macropores and a hydrogel filling. The benefit of the anisotropic surface topography and high biocompatibility of the hydrogel is that the planted cardiomyocytes could be induced into a highly ordered alignment with recovering autonomic beating ability on the elastic substrate. Because of the cell elongation and contraction during cardiomyocyte beating, the anisotropic inverse opal substrates undergo a synchronous cycle of deformation actuations, which can be reported as corresponding shifts of their photonic band gaps and structural colors. These self-driven biohybrid actuators could be used as elements for the construction of a soft-bodied structural color robot, such as a biomimetic guppy with a swinging tail. Besides, with the integration of a self-driven biohybrid actuator and microfluidics, the advanced heart-on-a-chip system with the feature of microphysiological visuality has been developed for integrated cell monitoring and drug testing. This anisotropic inverse opal-derived biohybrid actuator could be widely applied in biomedical engineering

Cardiomyocyte-Driven Structural Color Actuation in Anisotropic Inverse Opals

Biohybrid actuators composed of living tissues and artificial materials have attracted increasing interest in recent years because of their extraordinary function of dynamically sensing and interacting with complex bioelectrical signals. Here, a compound biohybrid actuator with self-driven actuation and self-reported feedback is designed based on an anisotropic inverse opal substrate with periodical elliptical macropores and a hydrogel filling. The benefit of the anisotropic surface topography and high biocompatibility of the hydrogel is that the planted cardiomyocytes could be induced into a highly ordered alignment with recovering autonomic beating ability on the elastic substrate. Because of the cell elongation and contraction during cardiomyocyte beating, the anisotropic inverse opal substrates undergo a synchronous cycle of deformation actuations, which can be reported as corresponding shifts of their photonic band gaps and structural colors. These self-driven biohybrid actuators could be used as elements for the construction of a soft-bodied structural color robot, such as a biomimetic guppy with a swinging tail. Besides, with the integration of a self-driven biohybrid actuator and microfluidics, the advanced heart-on-a-chip system with the feature of microphysiological visuality has been developed for integrated cell monitoring and drug testing. This anisotropic inverse opal-derived biohybrid actuator could be widely applied in biomedical engineering