Abstract
Advances in tissue engineering (TE) have revealed that porosity architectures, such as pore shape, pore size and pore interconnectivity are the key morphological properties of scaffolds. Well-ordered porous polymer scaffolds, which have uniform pore size, regular geometric shape, high porosity and good pore interconnectivity, facilitate the loading and distribution of active biomolecules, as well as cell adhesion, proliferation and migration. However, these are difficult to prepare by traditional methods and the existing well-ordered porous scaffold preparation methods require expensive experimental equipment or cumbersome preparation steps. Generally, droplet-based microfluidics, which generates and manipulates discrete droplets through immiscible multiphase flows inside microchannels, has emerged as a versatile tool for generation of well-ordered porous materials. This short review details this novel method and the latest developments in well-ordered porous scaffold preparation via microfluidic technology. The pore structure and properties of microfluidic scaffolds are discussed in depth, laying the foundation for further research and application in TE. Furthermore, we outline the bottlenecks and future developments in this particular field, and a brief outlook on the future development of microfluidic technique for scaffold fabrication is presented.
Highlights
In tissue engineering (TE), porous scaffolds serve as valuable three-dimensional (3D) supports for cell growth and the subsequent tissue formation [1,2]
The results demonstrated that micro-patterned surfaces and produced robust omniphobic membranes with well-defined interconnected micro-cavity proliferation of chondrocytes compared with non-patterned surfaces and maintain the structurescan byenhance evaporation-induced self-assembly of microdroplets (Figure 7B)
The pore structure of scaffolds has a great influence on their mechanical properties, degradation rate, permeability properties and cellular behaviors on them
Summary
In tissue engineering (TE), porous scaffolds serve as valuable three-dimensional (3D) supports for cell growth and the subsequent tissue formation [1,2]. The ideal scaffold needs to have a porous structure, good biocompatibility, degradability and certain biomechanical properties [3]. The pore structure (pore size, shape, porosity and pore interconnectivity) of the scaffolds is a key parameter that directly affects the secretion of the extracellular matrix, the degree of cell movement, cell differentiation and signal transduction [4,5]. Ordered, interconnected pores and uniform spatial structure of scaffolds are preferred in TE. In a uniform spatial structure, it is easy to obtain an ideal release behavior of bioactive molecules. The control of the fine structure is important in the preparation of porous scaffolds, because it directly impacts the scaffold’s mechanical stability and its regulation on cellular behaviors.
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