Developing surface chemistry strategies to study cell adhesion, migration and stem cell differentiation

The ability to precisely control the interactions between mammalian cells and materials at the molecular level is crucial to understanding the fundamental chemical nature of how the local environment influences cellular behavior, as well as for developing new biomaterials for a range of biotechnological and tissue engineering applications. In this work, we have developed a quantitative electroactive microarray strategy that can present a variety of ligands with precise control over ligand density on gold substrates to study cell adhesion and stem cell differentiation. We found that both the ligand composition and ligand density influence the rate of adipogenic differentiation from hMSCs. We also incorporated a simple microcontact printing technique to pattern cells on gold substrates to study how the cell population, surface adhesion area, and pattern geometry combine to influence stem cell differentiation. Furthermore, we transferred our sophisticated chemoselective immobilization strategy onto different materials including carbon nanotubes (CNTs), indium tin oxide (ITO), and gold nanorods. These tailored materials provide great platforms for studying the surface effects on cellular behaviors such as cell adhesion, migration and stem cell differentiation.