LAUSR

Current macrocapsules with semipermeable but immunoprotective polymeric membranes are attractive devices to achieve the purpose of immunoisolation, however, their diffusion ability of essential nutrients and oxygen are limited, which leads to a low survival rate of encapsulated cells. Here, we report a novel method by taking advantages of thermotropic liquid crystals -SDS liquid crystals (LCs) and rod-like crystal fragments (LCFs) to develop engineered alginate hydrogels with rod-like channels (diameter was 0.8331 ± 0.3077 μm). This cell-isolation capsule with engineered alginate hydrogel-wall allows small molecules, large molecules, and bacteria to diffuse out from the capsules freely but immobilizes the encapsulated cells inside and prevents cells in the microenvironment from moving in. The encapsulated cells show a high survival rate with isolation of host immune cells and long-term growth with adequate nutrients and oxygen supply. In addition, by sharing and responding to the normal molecular and vesicular microenvironment (NMV microenvironment), encapsulated cancer cells display a transition from tumorous phenotypes to ductal features of normal epithelial cells. Thus, our device will be potentially useful for clinical application of cell therapy by secreting molecules and for establishment of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models that are often difficult to achieve for certain types of tumors such as prostate cancer. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.