Abstract
Superhydrophobic materials have been widely applied in biomedical applications because of their ability to resist proteins/cells. But controversial results exist as some researches demonstrated enhanced cell adhesion on superhydrophobic materials and trapped air at the solid–liquid interface has been deemed to resist cell adhesion. However to date, the difficulty of keeping the solid–liquid interface from adsorbing air after air elimination hinders our understanding of the role of air in cell adhesion. To directly compare cell behavior on superhydrophobic materials with and without trapped air, an O-ring was fixed on the sample by metal paper clip and a certain amount of buffer was maintained on the surface after trapped air was removed by ultrasonication. The results revealed that the adsorption of BSA and serum proteins on superhydrophobic TiO2 nanopores (TNPs) only slightly increased when air was eliminated. There is no discernible difference in cell adhesion on superhydrophobic TNPs with and without trapped air, whereas cell adhesion was enhanced when basal media were utilized to replace serum-containing media. It implies that trapped air does not necessarily inhibit cell adhesion, whereas serum proteins dominate cell adhesion on superhydrophobic TNPs. The possible reason why air has no significant effect on cell adhesion is that the high adhesion force of superhydrophobic TNPs enables intimate contact of cell with the top of superhydrophobic TNPs and diminishes the effect of air inside naoporous structure.
Published Version
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