Biomimicked large-area anisotropic grooves from Dracaena sanderiana leaf enhances cellular alignment and subsequent differentiation

Abstract

Cellular alignment is important for the proper functioning of different tissues such as muscles or blood vessel walls. Hence, in tissue engineering, sufficient effort has been made to control cellular orientation and alignment. It has been shown that micro-and nanoscale anisotropic topological features on cell culture substrates can control cellular orientation. Such substrates are fabricated using various lithography techniques such as photolithography and soft lithography. Although such techniques are suitable for creating patterns in small areas to establish a proof-of-concept, patterning large areas with intricate features is an unsolved problem. In this work, we report that a replica of the groove-like anisotropic patterns of the abaxial side of a Dracaena sanderiana (bamboo) leaf can be used for large-area patterning of cells. We imprinted the leaf on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and characterised its surface topography using scanning electron microscopy. We further cultured bone marrow human mesenchymal cells (BM-hMSCs), skeletal muscle cells (C2C12), and neuroblastoma cells (SHSY5Y) on the patterned PDMS on which the cells orient along the direction of the grooved pattern. Further, we observed enhanced neuronal differentiation of SHSY5Y cells on biomimicked pattern compared to flat PDMS as measured by percentage of cells with neurites, neurite length and the expression of neuronal differentiation marker beta-III tubulin (TUJ1). This process is simple, frugal, and can be adopted by laboratories with resource constraints. This one-step technique to fabricate large-area anisotropic surface patterns from bamboo leaves can be used as a platform to study cellular alignment and its effect on various cellular functions, including differentiation.