Functionalized hydrogel microparticles prepared by microfluidics and their interaction with tumour marker carbonic anhydrase IX

Microfluidics allows to accurately control the synthesis of microparticles for specific applications, where size and morphology play an important role. In this work, we introduce microfluidic chip design with dedicated extraction and gelation sections allowing to prepare hydrogel particles in size range of a red blood cell. The influence of the extractive channel size, alginate concentration and type of storage media on the final size of the prepared alginate microparticles are discussed. The second part of the work is dedicated to surface modification of prepared particles using chitosan, pHPMA and monoclonal antibody molecule IgG M75. The specific interaction of the antibody molecule to an antigen domain of Carbonic Anhydrase IX, the transmembrane tumour protein associated with several types of cancer, is demonstrated by fluorescence imaging and compared to an isotypic antibody molecule.