Relative importance of surface wettability and charged functional groups on NIH 3T3 fibroblast attachment, spreading, and cytoskeletal organization

TLDR

Understanding the relationships between material surface properties, adsorbed proteins, and cellular responses is essential to designing optimal material surfaces for implantation and tissue engineering. The study prepared model surfaces with different functional groups to provide a range of surface wettability and charge. Cellular responses of attachment, spreading, and cytoskeletal organization were examined after preadsorption of these surfaces with dilute serum, specific serum proteins, and individual extracellular matrix components. Hydrophilic surfaces, especially those with moderate wettability (20–40° water contact angle), promoted significantly greater cell attachment, spreading, and cytoskeletal organization than hydrophobic surfaces, and BSA preadsorption produced a similar attachment pattern, indicating BSA’s key role, while charge differences affected attachment but not cell morphology. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Abstract

Understanding the relationships between material surface properties, adsorbed proteins, and cellular responses is essential to designing optimal material surfaces for implantation and tissue engineering. In this study, we have prepared model surfaces with different functional groups to provide a range of surface wettability and charge. The cellular responses of attachment, spreading, and cytoskeletal organization have been studied following preadsorption of these surfaces with dilute serum, specific serum proteins, and individual components of the extracellular matrix. When preadsorbed with dilute serum, cell attachment, spreading, and cytoskeletal organization were significantly greater on hydrophilic surfaces relative to hydrophobic surfaces. Among the hydrophilic surfaces, differences in charge and wettability influenced cell attachment but not cell area, shape, or cytoskeletal organization. Moderately hydrophilic surfaces (20–40 degree water contact angle) promoted the highest levels of cell attachment. Preadsorption of the model surfaces with bovine serum albumin (BSA) resulted in a pattern of cell attachment very similar to that observed following preadsorption with dilute serum, suggesting an important role for BSA in regulating cell attachment to biomaterials exposed to complex biological media. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res, 41, 422–430, 1998.