Fig. 5.

Applications of microgel assembly as scaffolds for tissue repair and regeneration: (a) neuronal tissue engineering. Images from Ref. [29] show neural progenitor cells reached not only the peri-infarct area but also the infarct area filled by peptide-grafted HA microgel assembly (scale bar: 100 μm); (b) cardiac and vascular tissue engineering. Images from Ref. [47] show that two-component HA microgels labeled with FITC for cleavable microgels and rhodamine for stable microgels were injected into rat hearts either without myocardial infarction (no MI) or with MI (scale bar: 500 μm); (c) cartilage tissue engineering. Images from Ref. [10] show cytoskeleton and immunostaining of cartilage biomarkers (col I, col II, and aggrecan) in BMSC-laden Gel/HA hybrid microgels (top scale bar: 1 mm, bottom scale bar: 100 μm); (d) skin tissue engineering. Images from Ref. [19] show the high stratified expression of the epithelial markers (keratin-5, keratin-14 and CD49f) above the PEG-VS microgel assembly, and large-scale tissue structures within the construct (scale bar: 50 μm). Reprinted with the permission from John Wiley and Sons, Springer Nature.