Figure 1.

Sacrificial hydrogel coatings may be a compelling strategy for cell release from microfluidic devices, as they will release both specific and non-specific cell-surface linkages. Here, we developed an alginate (green) biopolymer system which may be covalently crosslinked using methacryl groups (red) and biofunctionalized using biotin moeities incorporated in the base material (blue). The gel dissolution and subsequent cell release may be achieved by brief exposure to the bacterial enzyme alginate lyase which cleaves the backbone of the biopolymer.