Novel 3D-Printed Device for the Simple Preparation of Hydrogel Beads

Abstract

Encapsulation of cells in biocompatible polymers such as naturally derived hydrogels is an important technology that is used for cell therapy and tissue engineering. Herein, we introduce a simple and novel 3D-printed device to prepare hydrogel beads. The device is composed of a cylindrical tube with 1 inlet and 16 outlets. For the hydrogel solution, a low-melting-point agarose solution and sodium alginate are used. At a solution flow rate of 250 µL/min and a stir speed of 500, 1000, or 1250 rpm, the device produced beads of diameters 50–100, 30–60, and 5–30 µm, respectively. When the device was run at a flow rate of 500 µL/min at the above-mentioned stir speeds, the bead diameters were 100–150, 60–90, and 30–60 µm, respectively. Thus, this device can produce hydrogel beads of different sizes by altering the stir speed or the solution flow rate. In addition, we demonstrated that encapsulated MC3T3-E1 cells can survive and proliferate in the fabricated hydrogel when type I collagen is added to the gel solution. The simplicity of its design would make this device a valuable tool for rapid fabrication of cell-encapsulated hydrogels.