Flexible microscaffold facilitating the in vitro construction of different cellular constructs

Abstract

This paper presents a flexible microscaffold to facilitate the fabrication of different cellular constructs which could be used as the building units for the construction of a larger tissue with a complex structure. The device consists of a 6×6 array of membrane actuators, made of Polydimethylsiloxane. The superiority of membrane actuators helps preventing the leakage of culture medium and allows for the formation of various temporary scaffolds. In biological test, NIH3T3 cells were seeded on the scaffold provided. The positive pressure applied to membrane actuators enables the formation of the scaffold for construction of hole array-patterned and round flat cell sheets while the negative pressure applied enables the scaffold for construction of spherical cellular aggregates. The results after 2-day cultivation show that the micropatterned cell sheet has a thickness of about 100 μ m and a hole diameter of about 200 μ m. In addition, the round flat cell sheets have a diameter of about 623.87 μ m, and the spherical aggregates have a diameter of about 280 μ m. These suggest the possibility of using our device to prepare many different cellular constructs with more complex structures in future biological applications.