Chemical Method of Breaking the Cell-loaded Sodium Alginate/Chitosan Microcapsules

A novel chemical method to break and dissolve cell-loaded microcapsules under physiological condition was established, especially aiming at alginate/chitosan/alginate (ACA) microcapsules. The microcapsule-broken process was designed to proceed under an approximately physiological condition for the consideration of maintaining the cytoactive. The microbial cell (Pichia pastoris GS115) and animal cell (L929) were chosen as the model cells, and the microcapsule-broken solution (MBS) was basically composed of NaHCO3 and Na3C6H5O7 . 2H(2)O. The effects of MBS on the breaking of microcapsules and on the cytoactive were thoroughly investigated. Moreover, the mechanism of the breaking of microcapsules was analyzed. It was demonstrated that the microcapsules could be broken within 30 s, the breaking ratio of the microcapsule was 100%, and the fragments of the microcapsules was dissolved completely. It was also determined that the survival rate of cells was above 85%. Thus, the novel method will make it possible to quantitatively analyze the growth of cells in microcapsules, to examine the morphology and function of cells, to recover the cells and to purify metabolic products, which is always difficult to realize at present. Therefore, the chemical method of breaking and dissolving cell-loaded microcapsules would be the important component of microencapsulation technology applied to the cell culture and cell transplantation.