Droplet microfluidics technology offers refined control over the flows of multiple fluids in micro/nano-scale, enabling fabrication of micro/nano-droplets with precisely adjustable structures and compositions in a high-throughput manner. With the combination of proper hydrogel materials and preparation methods, single or multiple cells can be efficiently encapsulated into hydrogels to produce cell-loaded hydrogel microspheres. The cell-loaded hydrogel microspheres can provide a three-dimensional, relatively independent and controllable microenvironment for cell proliferation and differentiation, which is of great value for three-dimensional cell culture, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, stem cell research, single cell study and many other biological science fields. In this review, the preparation methods of cell-loaded hydrogel microspheres based on droplet microfluidics and its applications in biomedical field are summarized and future prospects are proposed.
Keywords: cell-loaded hydrogel microspheres; droplet microfluidics; single-cell analysis; three-dimensional cell culture; tumor vaccine.