This study demonstrated the spin-coating of functional diblock copolymers to develop smart culture inserts for thermoresponsive cell adhesion/detachment control. One part of the block components, poly(n-butyl methacrylate) block, strongly supported...
Cell micropatterning on micropatterned thermoresponsive polymer‐based culture surfaces facilitates the creation of on‐demand and functional cell sheets. However, the fabrication of micropatterned surfaces generally includes complicated procedures with multi‐step chemical reactions. To overcome this issue, this study proposes a facile preparation of micropatterned thermoresponsive surfaces via a two‐step physical coating of two different diblock copolymers. Both copolymers contain poly(butyl methacrylate) blocks as hydrophobic anchors for water‐stable polymer deposition. At first, thermoresponsive polymer layers are constructed on cell culture dishes via spin‐coating block copolymers containing poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide) blocks that exhibit a transition temperature of ≈30 °C in aqueous media. To create polymer micropatterns on the thermoresponsive surfaces, microcontact printing of block copolymers containing hydrophilic poly(N‐acryloylmorpholine) (PNAM) blocks is performed using polydimethylsiloxane stamps. Stamped PNAM‐based block polymers are adsorbed to the outermost thermoresponsive surfaces, and increase the surface hydrophilicity with decreasing protein adsorption. Cells adhere and proliferate on the thermoresponsive domains at 37 °C, whereas the stamped hydrophilic domains remain cell‐repellent for 7 days. At 20 °C, cell sheets with controlled sizes and shapes are harvested from the surfaces with the desired micropatterns. This technique is useful for the preparation of micropatterned polymer surfaces for various biomedical applications.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.