Comparing the effects of uncoated nanostructured surfaces on primary neurons and astrocytes

Abstract

The long-term application of central nervous system implants is currently limited by the negative response of the brain tissue, affecting both the performance of the device and the survival of nearby cells. Topographical modification of implant surfaces mimicking the structure and dimensions of the extracellular matrix may provide a solution to this negative tissue response and has been shown to affect the attachment and behavior of both neurons and astrocytes. In our study, commonly used neural implant materials, silicon, and platinum were tested with or without nanoscale surface modifications. No biological coatings were used in order to only examine the effect of the nanostructuring.We seeded primary mouse astrocytes and hippocampal neurons onto four different surfaces: flat polysilicon, nanostructured polysilicon, and platinum-coated versions of these surfaces. Fluorescent wide-field, confocal, and scanning electron microscopy were used to characterize the attachment, spreading and proliferation of these cell types. In case of astrocytes, we found that both cell number and average cell spreading was significantly larger on platinum, compared to silicon surfaces, while silicon surfaces impeded glial proliferation. Nanostructuring did not have a significant effect on either parameter in astrocytes but influenced the orientation of actin filaments and glial fibrillary acidic protein fibers. Neuronal soma attachment was impaired on metal surfaces while nanostructuring seemed to influence neuronal growth cone morphology, regardless of surface material. Taken together, the type of metals tested had a profound influence on cellular responses, which was only slightly modified by nanopatterning.Anita Pongrácz and Katalin Schlett contributed equally to this study.

[Retracted] The Anatase Phase of Nanotopography Titania with Higher Roughness Has Better Biocompatibility in Osteoblast Cell Morphology and Proliferation

“…In the T7P50V group, the distribution of actin filament was evenly spread and the actin microfilament system was parallel with the long axis of the cells, which might be affected by the nanotopography [ 31 ]. It is well known that spreading is a key step in cell adhesion, which has great potential for contributing to cell proliferation [ 32 , 33 ]. In this study, cell proliferation was also increased in the T7P50V group (anatase phase with higher roughness), which led to a faster and distinct polygonal spreading of the cells.…”

Vertically-Aligned Functionalized Silicon Micropillars for 3D Culture of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cortical Progenitors

“…The compatibility of oxidized silicon or silicon nitride for in vitro functional studies on neurons has been already reported, nevertheless, this is the first study to report compatibility with hCPs [50]. Furthermore, contrary to other studies employing silicon uncoated surfaces, we used surface topographies coated with laminin to optimize cell adhesion as also been reported by others [51][52][53]. In addition, these results demonstrate that our silicon micropillar arrays can be functionalized according to the cells' needs.…”

Differences and similarities of biophysical and biological characteristics between GBM and astrocyte cells

“…Furthermore, our recently published investigation on mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC), mouse skin broblast (MSF) and mouse lung squamous carcinoma cell (KLN-205) also took advantages of such complementary techniques to reveal the cells' surface roughness and elemental compositions (Ozdil et al 2021). The morphology and topology of the cell could be modulated by differential surface characters for instance stiffness (Mullen et al 2014;Chang et al 2017) and nano-topology (Liliom et al 2019;Hou et al 2020). Hence, the signal coming from the out of the cell alters the inner processes of the cell.…”