National Research Council (CNR), Institute for Nanostructured Materials Studies, Bologna, Italy.
Biophys J. 2010 Jun 16;98(12):2804-12. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2010.03.036.
We investigate how multiscale morphology of functional thin films affects the in vitro behavior of human neural astrocytoma 1321N1 cells. Pentacene thin film morphology is precisely controlled by means of the film thickness, Theta (here expressed in monolayers (ML)). Fluorescence and atomic force microscopy allow us to correlate the shape, adhesion, and proliferation of cells to the morphological properties of pentacene films controlled by saturated roughness, sigma, correlation length, xi, and fractal dimension, d(f). At early incubation times, cell adhesion exhibits a transition from higher to lower values at Theta approximately 10 ML. This is explained using a model of conformal adhesion of the cell membrane onto the growing pentacene islands. From the model fitting of the data, we show that the cell explores the surface with a deformation of the membrane whose minimum curvature radius is 90 (+/- 45) nm. The transition in the adhesion at approximately 10 ML arises from the saturation of xi accompanied by the monotonic increase of sigma, which leads to a progressive decrease of the pentacene local radius of curvature and hence to the surface area accessible to the cell. Cell proliferation is also enhanced for Theta < 10 ML, and the optimum morphology parameter ranges for cell deployment and growth are sigma <or= 6 nm, xi > 500 nm, and d(f) > 2.45. The characteristic time of cell proliferation is tau approximately 10 +/- 2 h.
我们研究了功能薄膜的多尺度形态如何影响人神经星形细胞瘤 1321N1 细胞的体外行为。通过薄膜厚度（这里用单层（ML）表示）精确控制并五苯薄膜的形态。荧光和原子力显微镜使我们能够将细胞的形状、粘附和增殖与通过饱和粗糙度、sigma、相关长度、xi 和分形维数 d(f)控制的并五苯薄膜的形态特性相关联。在早期孵育时间内，细胞粘附在 Theta 约 10 ML 时从较高值转变为较低值。这可以用细胞膜在生长的并五苯岛面上的共形粘附模型来解释。通过对数据的模型拟合，我们表明细胞用膜的最小曲率半径为 90(+/-45)nm 的变形来探索表面。粘附在约 10 ML 处的转变来自于 xi 的饱和以及 sigma 的单调增加，这导致并五苯局部曲率半径的逐渐减小，从而导致细胞可接触的表面积减小。当 Theta<10 ML 时，细胞增殖也会增强，细胞展开和生长的最佳形态参数范围为 sigma<6nm、xi>500nm 和 d(f)>2.45。细胞增殖的特征时间为 tau 约 10(+/-2)h。
