Cell behaviour of rat calvaria bone cells on surfaces with random nanometric features

Abstract

Cells encounter patterns around them in the form of fixed chemical and topographical patterns such as those of the extracellular matrix, or on artificial material, which can be of micro- or nanometric dimensions. In addition, nanometric surfaces are known to have distinct physicochemical properties from the bulk material. For us, these information serve as the reasons to deliberately pattern surfaces with nanometric features for biomedical applications. One of the possible methods to fabricate large areas consistently patterned with random nanofeatures is based on phase separation during spin casting of binary polymer mixes such as polystyrene and poly-bromostyrene. We present in this paper the reaction of rat calvaria bone cells to the same surfaces where we knew that endothelia and fibroblastic cells showed a differential reaction. The cells adhered to all surfaces in the same way after an initially increased adhesion on the rough surfaces (35 and 95 nm). The cells interacted with all surfaces in a similar way extending filopodia, spreading and extending after initial adhesion. The results illustrate that compared to either endothelia or fibroblasts, osteoblast cells proliferate less on the surface chemistry (PS) provided, and that the surface features used do not induce a changed behaviour after an initial increase in adhesion on the rougher surfaces.