Application of open porous poly(D,L‐lactide‐co‐glycolide) microspheres and the strategy of hydrophobic seeding in hepatic tissue cultivation

In this article, porous poly(D,L‐lactide‐co‐glycolide) (PLGA) microsphere scaffolds with a size of ∼ 400 μm and pores of ∼ 20 μm were prepared for constructing injectable three‐dimensional hepatocyte spheroids. The porous sites of PLGA microspheres provided a spatial space for hepatocyte distribution. Hepatocytes spheroids were cocultured with human umbilical vein endothelial cell, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell, or NIH/3T3 cells by combining the porous PLGA microspheres with the relatively hydrophobic culture strategy. The combination of open porous microspheres, hepatocytes, and nonparenchymal cells was demonstrated for application in functional hepatic tissue reconstruction. Hepatocellular‐specific functions can sustained up to 2 weeks in the support of coculturing with nonparenchymal cells. The spheroidal hepatocyte coculture system had the advantages of an injectable delivery, higher cell seeding density, protection from exerted shear stress, better exchange of nutrients, oxygen and metabolites, and heterotypic cell–cell contact within and between microspheres. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 101A: 2862‐2869, 2013.