Laboratory for Advanced Interfacial Materials and Devices, Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, P. R. China.
Faraday Discuss. 2019 Oct 30;219(0):189-202. doi: 10.1039/c9fd00013e.
We report a new initiator stickiness method to fabricate micropatterned binary polymer brush surfaces, which are ideal platforms for studying cell adhesion behavior. The atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) initiator, ω-mercaptoundecyl bromoisobutyrate (MUDBr), is found to adsorb on several hosting polymer brushes, including poly[oligo(ethylene glycol)methyl ether methacrylate] (POEGMA), poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA), and poly(glycidyl methacrylate) (PGMA) brushes. Based on the initiator stickiness, micropatterned initiator molecules are printed onto a layer of homogenous hosting polymer brushes via microcontact printing (μCP), and then, vertically, a patterned second layer of polymer brushes is grown from the initiator areas. With this simple, fast, and additive method, we demonstrate the fabrication of various binary polymer brushes, and show their applications for patterning cell microarrays and controlling cell orientation. This new approach to generating binary polymer brushes shows great potential for the manipulation of interfacial phenomena, facilitating a range of applications from semiconductors and lubrication to fundamental cell biology studies.
我们报告了一种新的引发剂粘性方法来制备微图案化的二元聚合物刷表面，这是研究细胞黏附行为的理想平台。原子转移自由基聚合（ATRP）引发剂ω-巯基十一烷酸溴异丁酸酯（MUDBr）被发现吸附在几种宿主聚合物刷上，包括聚[聚乙二醇甲基醚甲基丙烯酸酯]（POEGMA）、聚（2-羟乙基甲基丙烯酸酯）（PHEMA）和聚（甲基丙烯酸缩水甘油酯）（PGMA）刷。基于引发剂粘性，通过微接触印刷（μCP）将微图案化的引发剂分子印刷到一层均匀的宿主聚合物刷上，然后，垂直方向上，从引发剂区域生长出图案化的第二层聚合物刷。通过这种简单、快速和添加剂方法，我们演示了各种二元聚合物刷的制备，并展示了它们在图案化细胞微阵列和控制细胞取向方面的应用。这种生成二元聚合物刷的新方法在操纵界面现象方面显示出巨大的潜力，为从半导体和润滑到基础细胞生物学研究的一系列应用提供了便利。
