Controlled cell-material interactions

I. Wheeldon, A. Farhadi, A.G. Bick, E. Jabbari, A. Khademhosseini, Nanoscale tissue engineering spatial control over cell-materials interactions, Nanotechnology 22 (2011) 212001. 

A great deal of research is dedicated to the rational design of biomaterial carriers that efficiently improve ceU survival and ceU engraftment and possibly are able to control cell functions and hence the fate and clinical utility of the delivered cells through modulation of material bioactivity. Combinatorial approaches and various libraries of polymeric biomaterials for a rapid, microscale testing of cell—material interactions have been proposed with the aim to obtain a material-based control of cellular functions (Anderson et al., 2005 Meredith et al., 2003 Brocchini, 2001 Brocchini et al., 1997). 

One of the most active research areas in the field of materials science coneems the control and modification of surfaces and interfaces, also known as surfaee engineering [63, 72]. This is indeed an important tool in the design and control of molecular mechanisms for protein adsorption and material-cell interactions for different and specific biological and biotechnological applications. Thus, the surface can be functionalized with fouling/anti-fouhng properties, specific groups to promote cell material interactions, smart behavior (stimuli responsive or environmentally sensitive) or with micro- or nano-pattems. 

The cell-material interaction is a dynamic process which controls the cellular response and function (Rosso et al, 2004 Ruosiahti and Pierschbacher, 1987 Tamers et al., 2012 Tamers et al., 2012). The first phase of the process involves protein adsorption, which occurs on contact with body fluids and is influenced by the physicochemical characteristics of the material and its fabricated form. This is followed by the ceU-adhesion phase involving various biological molecules such as ECM, cell membrane, and cytoskeletal protein components. These interactions at the nanoscale modulate cellular responses in terms of migration, cell proliferation, and differentiation. Thus, considerable research efforts have been focused on development of nanomaterials with appropriate properties to enhance cell performance. The material properties in controlling the cell-material interactions can be broadly classified as physical, chemical, and biological cues (von der Mark et al., 2010). 

To improve and control cell-fiber interactions, the fiber meshes can be either composed of biomacromolecules or postfunctionalized with appropriate biomolecules. The question arises as to which materials can be electrospun. In principle, all polymers can be spun if they provide enough entanglements in solution and adequate interactions between the solvent and solute. Biopolymers, in particular, show dominant H-bonding and/or polyelectrolyte effects, which lead to a strong viscosity increase or poor solvent evaporation. In order to prevent such... 

Adsorbed proteins can greatly influence cellular reactions with synthetic materials. The sensitivity to adsorbed proteins, the variation in cellular response to specific proteins, and the rapid adsorption of proteins to all surfaces exposed to the biological environment, have led to the idea that the cellular response to implanted polymers is the result of specific interactions between components of the adsorbed protein layer on the polymer and the cell periphery. These observations, in turn, have led to the hypothesis that cellular interactions with foreign materials are controlled by the presence at the surface of specific proteins at sufficiently high surface density and degree of reactivity to elicit a response. Each of these factors constitutes an important aspect of the organization of the adsorbed protein layer. 

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