Abstract
Biomedical applications such as cell screening or cell–cell interaction studies require placement and adhesion of cells on surfaces with controlled numbers and location. In particular, single-cell arraying and positioning has come into focus as a basis of such applications. An ideal substrate would combine biocompatibility with favorable attributes such as pattern stability and easy processing. Here, we present a simple yet effective approach to single-cell arraying based on a graphene oxide (GO) surface carrying protein (fibronectin) microarrays to define cell adhesion points. These capture NIH-3T3 cells, resulting in cell arrays, which are benchmarked against analogous arrays on silanized glass samples. We reveal significant improvement in cell-capture performance by the GO coating with regards to overall cell adhesion and single-cell feature occupancy. This overall improvement of cell-arraying combined with retained transparency of substrate for microscopy and good biocompatibility makes this graphene-based approach attractive for single-cell experiments.
Highlights
Biomedical applications such as cell screening or cell–cell interaction studies require placement and adhesion of cells on surfaces with controlled numbers and location
The ink-filled spotting tip was brought in contact with graphene oxide (GO) material, allowing ink to flow from tip to sample by capillary forces
(about 5 to 6 times higher ratio for single-cell carrying to unoccupied features, and a 4 to 5 times higher ration for single-cell to ‘more than one cell’ carrying features depending on blocking with bovine serum albumin (BSA))
Summary
Biomedical applications such as cell screening or cell–cell interaction studies require placement and adhesion of cells on surfaces with controlled numbers and location. Simpler method to establish single-cell arrays involves engineering substrates used for cell incubation to define spatial-specific cellular adhesion Examples of this strategy include chemically tuning the material or patterning the substrates with micro-scale protein arrays for cells to preferentially bind onto. Spotting techniques separate the substrate fabrication step from the cell seeding procedure This allows for complex array designs within basic lab environments and provides a versatile method where one can modify arrays on the fly in between experiments, through changing pattern designs. It permits a variety of substrates or materials as basis for the printing or spotting process, which may be necessary depending on the experimental outcome, or desired application. Perspective, coated substrates should not significantly impact physical substrate features such as transparency or roughness, nor require special handling for cell culture
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