We present facile strategies for the fabrication of two types of microfluidic devices made of hydrogels using the natural biopolymers, alginate, and gelatin as substrates. The processes presented include the molding-based preparation of hydrogel plates and their chemical bonding. To prepare calcium-alginate hydrogel microdevices, we suppressed the volume shrinkage of the alginate solution during gelation using propylene glycol alginate in the precursor solution along with sodium alginate. In addition, a chemical bonding method was developed using a polyelectrolyte membrane of poly-L-lysine as the electrostatic glue. To prepare gelatin-based microdevices, we used microbial transglutaminase to bond hydrogel plates chemically and to cross-link and stabilize the hydrogel matrix. As an application, mammalian cells (fibroblasts and vascular endothelial cells) were cultivated on the microchannel surface to form three-dimensional capillary-embedding tissue models for biological research and tissue engineering.
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