Construction and Application of Three-Dimensional Cellular Tissues Assembled by Point-, Line-, and Plane-Shaped Cellular Building Blocks

Abstract

Microsized cell-laden hydrogel blocks are attractive cellular building blocks for in vitro reconstruction of 3D macroscopic tissues in bottom-up tissue engineering techniques. This review introduces microfabrication and microfluidic formation methods of the cell-laden hydrogel blocks, and manipulation techniques to assemble them for construction of the 3D macroscopic tissues. Moreover, we show applicability of the cell-laden hydrogel blocks and the 3D macroscopic tissues to biological research and medical treatments.