Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Jul 30.
Published in final edited form as: Chem Soc Rev. 2018 Jul 30;47(15):5646–5683. doi: 10.1039/c7cs00263g

Fig. 22.

Fig. 22

Single cell encapsulation and culture. a) Schematic showing the steps in encapsulation of single cells in thin layers of alginate gel. Representative bioluminescence images showing the biodistribution of mMSCs overexpressing Firefly luciferase with or without microgel encapsulation after in vivo injection.236 Reprinted with permission from ref 236. Copyright 2017, Nature Publishing Group. b) A standard microfluidic droplet generator was connected to the H2O2 diffusion-based crosslinking chip.238 The position of cells in microgel precursor droplets was analyzed immediately after droplet generation (t1), and at the end of the crosslinking chip (t3). MSCs encapsulated in delayed enzymatically crosslinked microgels remained viable and metabolically active throughout 28 d of in vitro culture. Reprinted with permission from ref. 238. Copyright 2017, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. c) Schematic illustration of PDMS microfluidic device for the production of Janus microgels.195 Each microgel contains two different cells labelled using red and green cell trackers, respectively, in adjacent compartments. The positive ALP staining assay results indicate that the presence of HUVEC favour the differentiation of MSC towards osteogenesis. Reprinted with permission from ref. 195. Copyright 2018, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.