NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center-NSEC, University of California, 3112 Etcheverry Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1740, USA.
Biomed Microdevices. 2009 Oct;11(5):1127-34. doi: 10.1007/s10544-009-9329-1. Epub 2009 Jun 3.
Spatial patterning of proteins is a valuable technique for many biological applications and is the prevailing tool for defining microenvironments for cells in culture, a required procedure in developmental biology and tissue engineering research. However, it is still challenging to achieve protein patterns that closely mimic native microenvironments, such as gradient protein distributions with desirable mechanical properties. By combining projection dynamic mask lithography and protein engineering with non-canonical photosensitive amino acids, we demonstrate a simple, scalable strategy to fabricate any user-defined 2D or 3D stable gradient pattern with complex geometries from an artificial extracellular matrix (aECM) protein. We show that the elastic modulus and chemical nature of the gradient profile are biocompatible and allow useful applications in cell biological research.
蛋白质的空间图案化是许多生物学应用的宝贵技术，也是定义培养细胞微环境的主要工具，这是发育生物学和组织工程研究的必要程序。然而，要实现紧密模拟天然微环境的蛋白质图案仍然具有挑战性，例如具有理想机械性能的梯度蛋白分布。通过结合投影动态掩模光刻和蛋白质工程与非经典光敏氨基酸，我们展示了一种简单、可扩展的策略，可从人工细胞外基质（aECM）蛋白中制造出任何用户定义的具有复杂几何形状的 2D 或 3D 稳定梯度图案。我们表明，梯度轮廓的弹性模量和化学性质是生物相容的，并允许在细胞生物学研究中有用的应用。
