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- Title
One-step formation of polymorphous sperm-like microswimmers by vortex turbulence-assisted microfluidics.
- Authors
Tan, Rong; Yang, Xiong; Lu, Haojian; Shen, Yajing
- Abstract
Microswimmers are considered promising candidates for active cargo delivery to benefit a wide spectrum of biomedical applications. Yet, big challenges still remain in designing the microswimmers with effective propelling, desirable loading and adaptive releasing abilities all in one. Inspired by the morphology and biofunction of spermatozoa, we report a one-step formation strategy of polymorphous sperm-like magnetic microswimmers (PSMs) by developing a vortex turbulence-assisted microfluidics (VTAM) platform. The fabricated PSM is biodegradable with a core-shell head and flexible tail, and their morphology can be adjusted by vortex flow rotation speed and calcium chloride solution concentration. Benefiting from the sperm-like design, our PSM exhibits both effective motion ability under remote mag/netic actuation and protective encapsulation ability for material loading. Further, it can also realize the stable sustain release after alginate-chitosan-alginate (ACA) layer coating modification. This research proposes and verifies a new strategy for the sperm-like microswimmer construction, offering an alternative solution for the target delivery of diverse drugs and biologics for future biomedical treatment. Moreover, the proposed VTAM could also be a general method for other sophisticated polymorphous structures fabrication that isn't achievable by conventional laminar flow. Microswimmers are promising candidates for various biomedical applications. Inspired by spermatozoa, Tan et al. report a one-step strategy to fabricate biodegradable sperm-like magnetic microswimmers with both propelling and cargo delivery functions in a vortex turbulence assisted microfluidic chip.
- Subjects
LAMINAR flow; CALCIUM chloride; MICROBUBBLE diagnosis; SPERMATOZOA; TURBULENCE; FREIGHT &; freightage; MICROFLUIDICS; NANOWIRES; MOTION
- Publication
Nature Communications, 2024, Vol 15, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2041-1723
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/s41467-024-49043-0