Hydrogel particles that can be engineered to compartmentally culture cells in a three-dimensional (3D) and high-throughput manner have attracted increasing interest in the biomedical area. However, the ability to generate hydrogel particles with specially designed structures and their potential biomedical applications need to be further explored. This work introduces a method for fabricating hydrogel particles in an ellipsoidal cap-like shape (i.e., ellipsoidal cap-like hydrogel particles) by employing an open-pore anodic aluminum oxide membrane. Hydrogel particles of different sizes are fabricated. The ability to produce ellipsoidal cap-like magnetic hydrogel particles with controlled distribution of magnetic nanoparticles is demonstrated. Encapsulated cells show high viability, indicating the potential for using these hydrogel particles as structure- and remote-controllable building blocks for tissue engineering application. Moreover, the hydrogel particles are also used as sacrificial templates for fabricating ellipsoidal cap-like concave wells, which are further applied for producing size controllable cell aggregates. The results are beneficial for the development of hydrogel particles and their applications in 3D cell culture.

中文翻译：

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工程化椭圆形帽状水凝胶颗粒，作为三维细胞培养的基石或牺牲模板†

可以工程化以三维（3D）和高通量方式隔室培养细胞的水凝胶颗粒引起了人们对生物医学领域日益增长的兴趣。但是，需要进一步探索生成具有特殊设计结构的水凝胶颗粒的能力及其潜在的生物医学应用。这项工作介绍了一种制造椭圆形帽状水凝胶颗粒的方法（即（椭圆形的帽状水凝胶颗粒），方法是使用开孔阳极氧化铝膜。制备了不同尺寸的水凝胶颗粒。证明了产生具有受控的磁性纳米颗粒分布的椭圆形帽状磁性水凝胶颗粒的能力。封装的细胞显示出很高的生存力，表明使用这些水凝胶颗粒作为组织工程应用的结构和远程可控构建基块的潜力。此外，水凝胶颗粒还用作制造椭圆形帽状凹孔的牺牲模板，其进一步用于生产尺寸可控的细胞聚集体。该结果对于水凝胶颗粒的开发及其在3D细胞培养中的应用是有益的。