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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Jun 10.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Mater. 2019 Nov 7;5(1):20–43. doi: 10.1038/s41578-019-0148-6

Fig. 7 |. Design considerations for building scaffolds from hydrogel microparticles.

Fig. 7 |

Scaffold design includes the engineering of: a | The annealing chemistry (which can be covalent, reversible, electrostatic or hydrophobic, resulting in various strengths of interactions) used to form microporous annealed particle (MAP) scaffolds. b | The mechanical properties, which are modulated by the stiffness of the individual hydrogel microparticles (HMPs), the degree of annealing (number of bonds between HMPs), the HMP-packing density and the chemistry of annealing (for example, covalent bonding is stronger than non-covalent bonding). c | Spatial control during injection. d | HMP size, which influences microporosity. e | Ligand modification for adhesion (distribution and type of ligand presentation). Applications of HMPs include: f | Cutaneous endogenous repair. g | Cell culture (intraparticle and interparticle culture platforms).