Chemistry of Materials. Volume 31, Issue 14, 23 July 2019, Pages 5181-5189
In Situ Magnetic Alignment and Cross-Linking of Injectable Microparticles into Centimeter-Scale Fibers for Efficient Myoblast Alignment and in Vivo Fiber Formation(Article)
Seung Woo Choi, Youngjin Choi, Jaeyun Kim*
Abstract
Muscle cell alignment plays an essential key role in the development of parallelly organized myotubes and the exertion of mechanical functions. Despite remarkable advances in cell alignment, there is still a need for a simpler and more efficient method of stably aligning and supporting cells. Here, we propose magnetic assembly of alginate-coated magnetic microparticles for myoblast alignment. Applying an external magnetic field in a controlled manner followed by ionic cross-linking of adjacent alginate chains led to the formation of stable linear alignment of particles in centimeter-scale even after the removal of the magnetic field. Based on this anisotropic alignment of bundles consisting of magnetic particles with further modification of alginate with arginine-glycine-aspartic acid, myoblast alignment was successfully demonstrated in vitro. Moreover, these particles can be simply injected through a needle without extra surgery and magnetically assembled to maintain the aligned structure in vivo. This injectable material platform can provide a facile method to supply structural directionality to the cells being regenerated, especially myoblasts for muscular tissues in clinical muscle loss or injury. © 2019 American Chemical Society.
