Titanium surfaces structured with regular geometry—material investigations and cell morphology

Abstract

AbstractMathematical modeling of the cell–material contact demands a thorough characterization of both the material surface and the cellular reaction. In earlier investigations we used stochastic material surfaces for this purpose. Also, other groups working on the same or similar subject used such stochastically structured material surfaces. In continuation of this work we now use fine‐structured material surfaces with well‐defined regular geometry because a stepwise and systematic variation of the structural parameters of geometrically defined surfaces makes it easier to find the characteristic parameters for modeling the cell–material interface. To begin with, we used grooves with rectangular profiles and cubic pillars. The grooves were etched in silicon by dry etching and then were sputter coated with 100 nm titanium. Arrays of cubic photo resist pillars with vertical side walls in different dimensions were obtained by a photolithographic process and were also sputter coated with 100 nm titanium. The samples were characterized by SEM and electrochemical methods. Human osteoblastic cells MG‐63 (ATCC, LGC promochem, Manassas, USA) were cultured in Dulbecco's modified eagle medium with 10% fetal calf serum (FCS) at 37 °C and 5% CO2. MG‐63 cells grown on microstructures within 24 h were visualized by SEM. We observed that cells on the grooved surfaces grew along the grooves mainly adhering to the horizontal edges of the material surface, whereas on the pillar structures the cells lie on the top of the pillars and are well spread. But the direction of spreading on the pillars is also determined by the horizontal and vertical edges of the surface structure. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.