Chen Zhiwei, Yang Yun, Xu Shaohua, Shen Zhenyu, Tang Yijian, Lin Yisheng, Huang Qiaoling
Research Institute for Biomimetics and Soft Matter, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory for Soft Functional Materials Research, Department of Physics, College of Physical Science and Technology, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
Jiujiang Research Institute of Xiamen University, Jiujiang 332000, China.
Regen Biomater. 2025 Apr 1;12:rbaf021. doi: 10.1093/rb/rbaf021. eCollection 2025.
Materials with special wettability have broad biomedical applications, including the control of mammalian cell adhesion and inhibiting biofilm formation. However, limited understanding of mammalian cellular responses to superhydrophobic materials with trapped air restricts their clinical applications. In this study, we fabricated materials with varied nanostructures and wettability, and systematically compared short-term mammalian cellular responses in the presence and absence of trapped air. Our results show that small nanostructures generate small, often invisible air bubbles at the solid-liquid interface when in contact with mammalian cell suspensions. In the presence of these small bubbles, the number of adhered cells was comparable to both the same sample without trapped air and its hydrophilic counterpart, contradicting the intuitive expectations that trapped air would reduce cell adhesion. In contrast, larger nanostructures resulted in visible, hundred-micron-sized air bubbles, which significantly inhibited cell adhesion. This effect was evident when comparing the same superhydrophobic sample with and without trapped air, as well as against hydrophilic counterparts with the same morphology. Further tracking of large air bubbles on the hydrophobic materials revealed that no cells adhered to the areas occupied by hundred-micron-sized air bubbles, while more cells accumulated at the solid-liquid-gas triple line. Hence, this work deepens the understanding of cellular responses to superhydrophobic materials, revealing that material structure size influences the size of trapped air and subsequently dominates cell adhesion.
具有特殊润湿性的材料在生物医学领域有着广泛的应用，包括控制哺乳动物细胞粘附和抑制生物膜形成。然而，对于哺乳动物细胞对含有截留空气的超疏水材料的反应了解有限，这限制了它们的临床应用。在本研究中，我们制备了具有不同纳米结构和润湿性的材料，并系统地比较了在有和没有截留空气的情况下哺乳动物细胞的短期反应。我们的结果表明，当与哺乳动物细胞悬液接触时，小的纳米结构在固液界面产生小的、通常不可见的气泡。在这些小气泡存在的情况下，粘附细胞的数量与没有截留空气的相同样品及其亲水对应物相当，这与截留空气会减少细胞粘附的直观预期相矛盾。相比之下，较大的纳米结构会产生可见的、数百微米大小的气泡，这显著抑制了细胞粘附。当比较具有和不具有截留空气的相同超疏水样品以及与具有相同形态的亲水对应物时，这种效果很明显。对疏水材料上大气泡的进一步追踪表明，没有细胞粘附在数百微米大小气泡占据的区域，而更多的细胞聚集在固液气三相线处。因此，这项工作加深了对细胞对超疏水材料反应的理解，揭示了材料结构尺寸影响截留空气的大小，进而主导细胞粘附。
