Regenerative Biomaterials Group, The RAFT Institute & The Griffin Institute, Northwick Park & Saint Mark's Hospital, London, UK.
Division of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, Eastman Dental Institute, University College London, London, UK.
Biomater Sci. 2021 Nov 23;9(23):8032-8050. doi: 10.1039/d1bm01149a.
Control of cell-surface interaction is necessary for biomaterial applications such as cell sheets, intelligent cell culture surfaces, or functional coatings. In this paper, we propose the emergent property of cell morphology as a design parameter in the bioengineering of cell-biomaterial surface interactions. Cell morphology measured through various parameters can indicate ideal candidates for these various applications thus reducing the time taken for the screening and development process. The hypothesis of this study is that there is an optimal cell morphology range for enhanced cell proliferation and migration on the surface of biomaterials. To test the hypothesis, primary porcine dermal fibroblasts (PDF, 3 biological replicates) were cultured on ten different surfaces comprising components of the natural extracellular matrix of tissues. Results suggested an optimal morphology with a cell aspect ratio (CAR) between 0.2 and 0.4 for both increased cell proliferation and migration. If the CAR was below 0.2 (very elongated cell), cell proliferation was increased whilst migration was reduced. A CAR of 0.4+ (rounded cell) favoured cell migration over proliferation. The screening process, when it comes to biomaterials is a long, repetitive, arduous but necessary event. This study highlights the beneficial use of testing the cell morphology on prospective prototypes, eliminating those that do not support an optimal cell shape. We believe that the research presented in this paper is important as we can help address this screening inefficiency through the use of the emergent property of cell morphology. Future work involves automating CAR quantification for high throughput screening of prototypes.
控制细胞表面相互作用对于生物材料应用是必要的，例如细胞片、智能细胞培养表面或功能性涂层。在本文中，我们提出细胞形态的突现性质作为细胞-生物材料表面相互作用的生物工程设计参数。通过各种参数测量的细胞形态可以指示这些各种应用的理想候选物，从而减少筛选和开发过程所需的时间。本研究的假设是，在生物材料表面上增强细胞增殖和迁移存在最佳的细胞形态范围。为了验证假设，将原代猪真皮成纤维细胞（PDF，3 个生物学重复）培养在十种不同的表面上，这些表面包含组织天然细胞外基质的成分。结果表明，对于细胞增殖和迁移，细胞长宽比（CAR）在 0.2 到 0.4 之间存在最佳形态。如果 CAR 低于 0.2（非常细长的细胞），则细胞增殖增加，而迁移减少。CAR 为 0.4+（圆形细胞）有利于细胞迁移而不是增殖。对于生物材料而言，筛选过程是一个漫长、重复、艰巨但必要的事件。本研究强调了在潜在原型上测试细胞形态的有益用途，从而排除那些不支持最佳细胞形状的原型。我们相信，本文提出的研究非常重要，因为我们可以通过利用细胞形态的突现性质来帮助解决这种筛选效率低下的问题。未来的工作涉及为原型的高通量筛选自动进行 CAR 量化。
