Despite great progress in engineering functional tissues for organ repair, including the heart, an invasive surgical approach is still required for their implantation. Here, we designed an elastic and microfabricated scaffold using a biodegradable polymer (poly(octamethylene maleate (anhydride) citrate)) for functional tissue delivery via injection. The scaffold’s shape memory was due to the microfabricated lattice design. Scaffolds and cardiac patches (1 cm × 1 cm) were delivered through an orifice as small as 1 mm, recovering their initial shape following injection without affecting cardiomyocyte viability and function. In a subcutaneous syngeneic rat model, injection of cardiac patches was equivalent to open surgery when comparing vascularization, macrophage recruitment and cell survival. The patches significantly improved cardiac function following myocardial infarction in a rat, compared with the untreated controls. Successful minimally invasive delivery of human cell-derived patches to the epicardium, aorta and liver in a large-animal (porcine) model was achieved.

尽管在用于器官修复的功能性组织工程设计中取得了巨大进展，包括心脏，但仍需要采用侵入性外科手术方法进行植入。在这里，我们设计了一种可生物降解的聚合物（聚（辛酸八亚甲基马来酸酯（酸酐）柠檬酸酯））可通过注射进行功能组织递送的弹性微细制造支架。脚手架的形状记忆归因于微晶格设计。支架和心脏贴片（1厘米×1厘米）通过小至1毫米的孔口输送，注射后恢复其初始形状，而不会影响心肌细胞的活力和功能。在皮下同种大鼠模型中，当比较血管化，巨噬细胞募集和细胞存活率时，心脏补丁的注射等同于开放手术。与未治疗的对照组相比，这些贴剂可显着改善大鼠心肌梗死后的心脏功能。在大动物（猪）模型中，成功地将人类细胞源性斑块微创递送至心外膜，主动脉和肝脏。