Fabrication of multilayered hepatic lobule tissues using Ca-alginate hydrogel platforms

Abstract

Artificial cell sheet is utilized as a useful method for tissue engineering. We proposed a novel approach to fabricate the Ca-alginate gel sheet embedded liver cells to mimic the liver lobule tissue. Ca-alginate sheet with hepatic lobule shaped pattern was firstly deposited on a micro-electrode device based on the electrodeposition method. Viability of embedded cells was checked to be maintained more than 90%. What's more, we further stacked the fabricated cell sheets into a pre-designed PDMS mold. The stacked multi-layered 3D cell structure can contribute the possibility for the applications of artificial liver fabrication.