Silicon microgrooves for contact guidance of human aortic endothelial cells

• Sara Fernández-Castillejo,
• Pilar Formentín,
• Úrsula Catalán,
• Josep Pallarès,
• Lluís F. Marsal and
• Rosa Solà

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 675–681, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.72

• microscale features to mimic the endothelium in lineal vessels. Keywords: cell morphology; contact guidance; microgrooves; silicon; human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs); Introduction Micro- and nanostructured materials for medical devices have demonstrated that surface topography as well as surface

• . Reactions of cells to topography are different in the nanometre and micrometre range. Different patterns cause differences in migration or adhesion. Moreover, morphology and orientation of the cells are also influenced by the contact guidance, also known as topographic guidance [7]. This concept refers to

• the affinity of the cell to be elongated and guided by the shape of the surface. The response of the cells to these topographical cues and the concept of contact guidance have been described previously for a wide variety of cells such as neuronal, epithelial or endothelial cells [8][9][10]. In

Nano- and microstructured materials for in vitro studies of the physiology of vascular cells

• Alexandra M. Greiner,
• Adria Sales,
• Hao Chen,
• Sarah A. Biela,
• Dieter Kaufmann and
• Ralf Kemkemer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1620–1641, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.155

• increase of boundaries and surface energy on the surface [10][36]. Many cells show directed migration and a polarized morphology on nano- and microstructured substrates. The process by which cells orient and migrate along the longest axis of a surface feature is called contact guidance [186][216]. Many

• cell types on different surface topographies of various dimensions have been observed to experience contact guidance [217][218][219][220][221][222]. The most commonly used surface structure to study this phenomenon consists of arrays of ridges and grooves. Generally, cells orient preferably stronger

• along the direction of grooves and ridges, the narrower and deeper/higher these structures are [5][12][156][192][221][222][223][224][225]. It was observed that few tenths of nanometers in structure depth was already sufficient for some cell types to trigger contact guidance [201][202]. The limit of cell