Microfluidic generation of egg-derived protein microcarriers for 3D cell culture and drug delivery

Abstract

Microcarriers have a demonstrated value for biomedical applications, in particular for drug delivery and three-dimensional cell culture. Attempts to develop this technique tend to focus on the fabrication of functional microparticles by using convenient methods with innovative but accessible materials. Inspired by the process of boiling eggs in everyday life, which causes the solidification of egg proteins, we present a new microfluidic “cooking” approach for the generation of egg-derived microcarriers for cell culture and drug delivery. As the egg emulsion droplets are formed with exquisite precision during the microfluidic emulsification, the resultant egg microcarriers present highly monodisperse and uniform morphologies at the size range of hundred microns to one millimeter. Benefiting from the excellent biocompatibility of the egg protein components, the obtained microcarriers showed good performances of cell adherence and growth. In addition, after a freezing treatment, the egg microcarriers were shown to have interconnected porous structures throughout their whole sphere, could absorb and load different kinds of drugs or other active molecules, and work as microcarrier-based delivery systems. These features point to the potential value of the microfluidic egg microcarriers in biomedicine.