Photothermally triggered actuation of hybrid materials as a new platform for in vitro cell manipulation

Abstract

Mechanical forces in the cell’s natural environment have a crucial impact on growth, differentiation and behaviour. Few areas of biology can be understood without taking into account how both individual cells and cell networks sense and transduce physical stresses. However, the field is currently held back by the limitations of the available methods to apply physiologically relevant stress profiles on cells, particularly with sub-cellular resolution, in controlled in vitro experiments. Here we report a new type of active cell culture material that allows highly localized, directional and reversible deformation of the cell growth substrate, with control at scales ranging from the entire surface to the subcellular, and response times on the order of seconds. These capabilities are not matched by any other method, and this versatile material has the potential to bridge the performance gap between the existing single cell micro-manipulation and 2D cell sheet mechanical stimulation techniques.

Mechanical forces direct stem cell behaviour in development and regeneration

“…81 Mechanical tension in cells can be stimulated by photo-actuation with thermally-responsive micropillars. 82 Furthermore, micro-scale technologies can tune spatial cues to show how cell shape and spreading area is linked to how they respond to mechanics. 83,84 These technologies offer the possibility to control multiple modes of external mechanical loading on stem cells.…”

Microfluidic Platforms toward Rational Material Fabrication for Biomedical Applications

“…With different microchannel designs, various sophisticated 3D structures of alginate hydrogels can be successfully formed by the programmable deformation of 2D films (Figure d) . It can be envisioned that the progresses of various fields, such as droplet transportation, cell manipulation, and soft robotics, will be significantly promoted by the microfluidic‐assisted rational design and fabrication of films with programmed reconfigurable morphologies and shapes.…”

Biohybrid Design Gets Personal: New Materials for Patient‐Specific Therapy

“…Sutton et al followed a similar approach to develop a composite PNIPAAm‐gold nanorod hydrogel material, which they patterned around a series of microscale pillars coating a flat substrate designed for cell culture . Since the pillars were embedded within the thermo‐responsive gel, the rate and degree of gel swelling regulated the deflection of the micropillars, yielding microscale deformation of the cell culture substrate.…”

“…a) Schematic of light‐triggered actuation of heat‐responsive gel that serves as a cell culture substrate. Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2017, Springer Nature.…”