| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Biomaterial Interfaces | Thursday Sessions |
| Session BI+AS+NS-ThA |
| Session: | Surface Analysis and Related Methods for Biological Materials |
| Presenter: | H.E. Canavan, University of New Mexico |
| Authors: | H.E. Canavan, University of New Mexico K. Gallagher-Gonzales, University of New Mexico J.A. Reed, University of New Mexico |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) (pNIPAM) has proven to be an efficient and non-destructive means of detaching intact sheets of mammalian cells. In addition, cell sheets detached from pNIPAM maintain their association with the extracellular matrix (ECM) during and following detachment from a coated surface, enabling their use in tissue engineering. To date, the majority of those studying cellular interactions with pNIPAM have focused on harvesting large domains of cells for such tissue engineering applications. However, there are many other applications for which the non-destructive release of smaller populations, or even isolated cells, is desirable. For example, isolated cells are required to ascertain the extent of transmembrane protein receptor upregulation when assaying the efficacy of cancer therapeutics on cell populations via flow cytometry (FC). In this work, arrays of thermoresponsive domains were fabricated to isolate defined populations of cells using a variety of techniques. The surface chemistry, thermoresponse, and topography of the films generated were verified via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), contact angle measurements, and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively, and compared to controls. The cell releasing properties of the films were characterized by incubating baby hamster kidney (BHK) and bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs). The behavior of the cells from isolated cells and small cell populations were characterized and compared to large cell population controls.