| Two fabrication methods have been developed to deposit E. coli on an ordered dense array of cell adhesion spots. In one method, gold regions are patterned and then coated with various thiols, and the other uses photolithography to pattern a self-assembled monolayer of thiols through photo-oxidation and subsequent thiol exchange. The challenge associated with growing cells on these surfaces was addressed by a variety of approaches, including the liquid LB method in which patterned cells are incubated in LB media, the top agarose method that uses agarose gels to grow cells, and the nitrocellulose (N/C) membrane method in which cell patterns are transferred to N/C membranes for culturing. The last was identified to be suitable for on-chip cell incubation. The SAM patterning method was also utilized to pattern Hela cells, one kind of animal cells on flat surfaces. Cell patterns were observed on the regions with large sized adhesion spots. |
