Experimental Study of the Behavior of Muscle Cells on Projection Micro-stereolithography Printed Micro-structures

摘要

Recently, muscle cells were studied as a promising bioactuator for bio-syncretic robots. While projection micro-stereolithography (PμSL) can print poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) hydrogels into micro-scale 3D structures, the muscle cells based robots could be small and easy-fabricated if the muscle cells can directly grow and differentiate on PμSL PEGDA structures. However, PμSL PEGDA cannot be directly used as an extracellular environment for muscle cells without bio-functionalization; the behavior of muscle cells on modified PuSL PEGDA should also be studied. In this paper, collagen I and Matrigel were used to explore the bio-functionalization of PuSL PEGDA. By using functionalized PμSL PEGDA hydrogel structures, the adhesion, survival, differentiation of muscle cells were studied. Results show that physically crosslinked by collagen I, PμSL PEGDA was able to provide a suitable environment for adhesion of C2C12 muscle cells. Mixed with 10% Matrigel in DMEM, the condition of cells were further improved. The results of viability assay were consistent and confirmed the living condition of muscle cells on PuSL PEGDA. The differentiation test provides the evidence that the differentiated C2C12 muscle cells were able to contract. Eventually, this paper provide methods for improving the bio-functionalization of PμSL printed PEGDA, and the results proves that the functionalized PμSL printed PEGDA structures have the potential to be used as muscle cells based micro bioactuators and bio-syncretic robots.