Highly stretchable cell-laden hydrogel microfiber

This conference proceeding describes a highly stretchable cell-laden hydrogel microfiber using doublenetwork hydrogels. Previously, a useful method involving the implantation of rat primary islet cell fibers for the treatment of diabetic mice was reported [1]. However, normal microfiber constructed from alginate hydrogel shell is too weak to be handled by hand manipulation. We here develop an approach to improve the shell material and developed highly stretchable cell-laden hydrogel microfibers. Using the doublenetwork hydrogel consisted of alginate-calcium and polyacrylamide as the microfiber's shell, the microfibers showed high stretchability with about 6 times higher than that of the existing hydrogel microfibers. The highly stretchable cell fibers would be useful for the application in robust suture-type tissue grafts and the double-network hydrogel shell serve a function of immunity isolating membrane.