Department of Chemical Engineering and Institute of Nanoscience and Technology, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 133-791, South Korea.
Biomacromolecules. 2015 Jun 8;16(6):1761-70. doi: 10.1021/acs.biomac.5b00295. Epub 2015 May 18.
The patterning of biological components into structural analogues of native tissues to simulate an environment for directing cell growth is one important strategy in biomaterials fabrication. It is widely accepted that chemical, mechanical, and topological cues from the extracellular matrix (ECM) provide important signals for guiding cells to exhibit characteristic polarity, orientation, and morphology. To fully understand the delicate relationship between cell behavior and ECM features, biomaterials fabrication requires improved techniques for tailoring nano/microstructured patterns from relevant biological building blocks rather than using nonbiological materials. Here we reveal a unique approach for the nano/microfabrication of custom patterned biomaterials using collagen as the sole building material. With this new fabrication technique, we further revealed that custom collagen patterns could direct the orientation and morphology of fibroblast growth as a function of vertex density and pattern spacing. Our findings suggest that this technique may be readily adopted for the free form fabrication of custom cell scaffolds purely from natural biological molecules including collagen, among other relevant ECM components.
将生物成分制成与天然组织结构类似的结构模拟物，以模拟引导细胞生长的环境，这是生物材料制造中的一个重要策略。人们普遍认为，细胞外基质（ECM）的化学、机械和拓扑线索为指导细胞表现出特征性的极性、取向和形态提供了重要信号。为了充分了解细胞行为和 ECM 特征之间的微妙关系，生物材料制造需要改进技术，以便从相关的生物构建块中定制纳米/微结构图案，而不是使用非生物材料。在这里，我们揭示了一种使用胶原蛋白作为唯一构建材料的定制图案生物材料的纳米/微制造的独特方法。使用这种新的制造技术，我们进一步揭示了定制胶原蛋白图案可以根据顶点密度和图案间距来指导成纤维细胞生长的方向和形态。我们的研究结果表明，该技术可能很容易被采用，用于从包括胶原蛋白在内的天然生物分子以及其他相关 ECM 成分中自由形式制造定制的细胞支架。
