Enhancement of Polymer Cytocompatibility by Nanostructuring of Polymer Surface

Abstract

Polymers with their advantageous physical, chemical, mechanical, and electrical properties and easy manufacturing are widely used in biology, tissue engineering, and medicine, for example, as prosthetic materials. In some cases the polymer usage may be impeded by low biocompatibility of common synthetic polymers. The biocompatibility can be improved by modification of polymer surface, for example, by plasma discharge, irradiation with ionizing radiation, and sometime subsequent grafting with suitable organic (e.g., amino-acids) or inorganic (e.g., gold nanoparticles) agents. In this way new chemically active structures are created on the polymer surface, and in some cases new surface relief is created. Recent advances in nanotechnology and in characterization of nanostructured objects open the way to development of new polymer-based materials with better bio-properties and higher application potential in biomedicine. Some of recent results obtained in the field are summarized and discussed in this paper.

Antimicrobial and optical properties of PET chemically modified and grafted with borane compounds

“…Surface hydrophobicity or hydrophilicity are known to play a crucial role in surface adhesion or cytocompatibility. 16,35,36 The difference in surface wettability between pristine PET and PET foil aer activation with piranha solution, graing with cysteamine and subsequent graing with B1 is illustrated in Fig. 4.…”

Thermoforming techniques for manufacturing porous scaffolds for application in 3D cell cultivation

“…Observed differences in cell adhesion and metabolic activity may result from the varying surface properties of the PC and PLA scaffolds. It is known that differences in the surface nanostructure influence cellular adhesion which significantly depends on the surface microroughness [25]. Surface roughness can be also the reason of the improvement of hydrophilicity of the PLA films and therefore improve the adsorption of collagen [26].…”

Antibacterial nanocomposite supporting cell growth and spheroid formation by chemical surface treatment of polymer foil

“…The cell‐material interaction strongly depends on the physical and chemical properties of the material surface 49,50 …”

“…The cell-material interaction strongly depends on the physical and chemical properties of the material surface. 49,50 The cell adhesion and proliferation in vitro were investigated on polypropylene foil before activation and after individual steps of modification. The experiments were performed with B14 cells (Chinese Hamster, Cricetulus griseus, ATCC, CCL-14.1, Sigma-Aldrich Inc.), which were maintained in complete High glucose DMEM medium with 10% (v/v) foetal bovine serum (FBS) and 4 mM glutamine.…”