Cell patterning through inkjet printing of one cell per droplet

The inkjet ejection technology used in printers has been adopted and research has been conducted on manufacturing artificial tissue by patterning cells through micronozzle ejection of small droplets containing multiple cells. However, stable injection of cells has proven difficult, owing to the freq...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biofabrication 2012-12, Vol.4 (4), p.045005-045005
Main Authors: Yamaguchi, Shuichi, Ueno, Akira, Akiyama, Yoshitake, Morishima, Keisuke
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Bioprinting - instrumentation
Bioprinting - methods
Biotechnology - instrumentation
Biotechnology - methods
Cell Survival - physiology
Construction
Droplets
Ejection
Equipment Design
Inkjet printing
Nozzles
Patterning
Piezoelectricity
Sf9 Cells
Single-Cell Analysis - instrumentation
Spodoptera
Three dimensional
Tissue Array Analysis - instrumentation
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Summary:The inkjet ejection technology used in printers has been adopted and research has been conducted on manufacturing artificial tissue by patterning cells through micronozzle ejection of small droplets containing multiple cells. However, stable injection of cells has proven difficult, owing to the frequent occurrence of nozzle clogging. In this paper, a piezoelectric inkjet head constructed with a glass capillary that enabled viewing of the nozzle section was developed, the movement of cells ejected from the nozzle tip was analyzed, and a method for stably ejecting cells was verified. A pull-push ejection method was compared with a push-pull ejection method regarding the voltage waveform applied to the piezoelectric element of the head. The push-pull method was found to be more suitable for stable ejection. Further, ejection of one cell per droplet was realized by detecting the position of the cell in the nozzle section and utilizing these position data. Thus, a method for more precise patterning of viable cells at desired position and number was established. This method is very useful and promising not only for biofabrication, 3D tissue construction, cell printing, but also for a number of biomedical application, such as bioMEMS, lab on a chip research field.
ISSN:1758-5082
1758-5090
DOI:10.1088/1758-5082/4/4/045005