I am new to this field and so my question might not look well defined. I started to read papers but I got lost between dozens of papers addressing different aspects of cell encapsulation and embedding. The main question is that, is it possible to have this much accuracy in cell encapsulation to properly embed one (or a few) cells in separate hydrogel spheres? and if so, is there any comprehensive review or report focusing on the main process parameters and upcoming challenges?
The accuracy on cell encapsulation is very low. But approx cell number in a capsule is possible to calculate by breaking the capsule and counting the cell. And in case of single cell encap is also possilbe is u can isolate a single cell.
Best wishes
Might be good for start:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168165607000910
Best regards
Steva
If you work with very fine, precise microneedles, it would be easy to inject them one by one into separate hydrogel droplets prior to crosslinking. But it takes time and may be suitable for single cell imaging studies
Geez! Obtaining single cells is a tough job on its own, hence adding a gelation procedure would probably double up your work. You can encapsulate anything in hydrogel beads, would it be a single/few cells or millions. Well, your question makes me wonder if we could add a hydrogel gelation reservoir along the microfluidic channels discussed in these papers (omit the experiment, they both analyze single cells):
1. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac300264v
2.http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2015/lc/c4lc01126k/unauth#!divAbstract
Sorry, I haven't heard about what you just described in your query.
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