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Improving mechanical stability and density distribution of hepatocyte microcapsules by fibrin clot and gold nano-particles

journal contribution
posted on 2017-05-12, 13:58 authored by Tao SunTao Sun, Melinda Ling Hou Chan, Chai-Hoon Quek, Hanry Yu
Bio-artificial livers (BAL) with microencapsulated hepatocytes have the typical limitations in maintaining hepatocyte functions, mechanical stability and uniform perfusion in packed or fluidized-bed bioreactors. We have previously developed microcapsules with enhanced hepatocyte functions. Here we have introduced a fibrin network inside microcapsules by (1) mixing collagen and fibrinogen with the encapsulated hepatocytes to support the cells; (2) submerging the microcapsules into a thrombin solution to induce the formation of an insoluble fibrin network inside the microcapsules. Fracture analysis on the microcapsules revealed significant improvement in mechanical stability. We have also introduced different amounts of gold nano-particles into microcapsules to achieve different densities for uniform bioreactor perfusion. These gold nano-particles also improved the mechanical stability of the microcapsules. Both the fibrin network and gold nano-particles exhibited the additional benefits of enhancing certain bio-functions of the encapsulated hepatocytes. The applications of these improved microcapsules in the development of bio-artificial livers are discussed.

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Chemical Engineering

Published in

Journal of Biotechnology

Volume

111

Issue

2

Pages

169 - 177

Citation

SUN, T. ... et al, 2004. Improving mechanical stability and density distribution of hepatocyte microcapsules by fibrin clot and gold nano-particles. Journal of Biotechnology, 111 (2), pp.169-177

Version

  • NA (Not Applicable or Unknown)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2004

Notes

This paper is closed access.

ISSN

0168-1656

Language

  • en

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