Guided assembly, nanostructuring and functionalization with brushes of microscale polymer cubes for tailored 3-D cell microenvironments

Tailored Combinatorial Microcompartments through the Self‐Organization of Microobjects: Assembly, Characterization, and Cell Studies

“…Similar cell behavior was also observed in conventional microwells and in microwells obtained by micromanipulation. [22] In conclusion, we have reported an ew strategy for the fabrication of combinatorial microcompartments as cell niches through the self-organization of microobjects.Through changes in surface wettability the microobjects were shown to adopt different orientations at the water/air interface and hence to self-assemble into different aggregates by capillary interactions.R andom and block aggregate chains as well as unique combinatorial 3D environments in close-packed hexagonal microcube aggregates were obtained with multiple components of identical wettability,b ut distinct types of functionalized microcubes.T he potential of these microwells for combinatorial cell-surface interaction studies in 3D was demonstrated, based on polymer brush and selective protein adsorption functionalities encoded on differently modified cube walls.T he interaction of human pancreatic tumor cells and the side walls of the microwell could be selectively controlled, underlining the potential of the strategy for systematic structure-property relationship studies.…”

Control of Orientation, Formation of Ordered Structures, and Self-Sorting of Surface-Functionalized Microcubes at the Air–Water Interface

“…The hot embossing process was done using a nanoimprint lithography (NIL) system (Eitre 3, Obducat, Sweden) with a temperature of 175 °C and a pressure of 10 bar for 60 s, according to a previous report. 33 The PDMS stamp was peeled off after the temperature cooled down to 75 °C.…”

Asymmetric multifunctional 3D cell microenvironments by capillary force assembly

“…The materials and the standard experimental procedures used in this work were adapted from previously published work. 16,20,22 Modification of the cubes' top surfaces with nanoline patterns Polystyrene (PS) cubes were fabricated by Nano Imprint Lithography (NIL) (Eitre 3, Obducat, Sweden), as reported before. 16,20,22 Nanoscale line patterns with a pitch of 750 nm were imprinted on top of the cubes using a nanopatterned hardpoly(dimethylsiloxane) (h-PDMS) stamp.…”

“…16,20,22 Modification of the cubes' top surfaces with nanoline patterns Polystyrene (PS) cubes were fabricated by Nano Imprint Lithography (NIL) (Eitre 3, Obducat, Sweden), as reported before. 16,20,22 Nanoscale line patterns with a pitch of 750 nm were imprinted on top of the cubes using a nanopatterned hardpoly(dimethylsiloxane) (h-PDMS) stamp. 23 This second NIL step was carried out for 60 s using a temperature of 105 1C and a pressure of 3 bars.…”

“…The assembly strategy is motivated by the plethora of work on colloid and nanocrystal assembly, 17 which has been expanded to millimeter-scale objects and cell laden microgel building blocks by Whitesides and coworkers 18 and by Khademhosseini and coworkers, respectively. 19 Here we expand on our previous work on polymer building blocks for the fabrication of designed cell microenvironments by guided assembly 20 and interfacial self-assembly. 16 The introduction of versatile polymer brushes 10a,21 for controlling the interfacial functionality as well as surface topographic nanostructuring was explored to obtain asymmetric multifunctional 3D cell microenvironments in a combinatorial fashion and to study details of protein adsorption as well as the feasibility of interrogating the interaction of pancreatic tumor cells with the multitude of microenvironments fabricated.…”