Design and Development of Guiding Patterns for Cell Migration Control

Abstract

Cell migration is considered as an important progress throughout embryonic development, immune, tissue repair, and pathological processes. Although the mechanism of how cells polarize and migrate remains unclear, it has been demonstrated that cell behavior is affected by the extracellular cues in intro. In this study, we aimed at controlling the cell migration by designed topography on polydimethylsiloxane platforms without the needs for chemical gradient or fluid flow. Results show that strategically located bending on gratings can effectively influence the cell migration characteristics. MC3T3-E1 osteoblast cells were observed to follow orthogonal migration directions as affected by obtuse and acute angles. Obtuse bending decorated with longer segment generally increased the cell directionality. On the contrary, while cells were less directional on right angled pattern, their motility was also appeared to be lower. We also examined how the same pattern exerted discriminative impacts on different cell lines in terms of both motility and directionality. The knowledge developed in this study provides the interface of managing cell locomotion from the engineering perspective and can be potentially used in future smart biomaterial or biosystems.