TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of topography parameters on cellular morphology during guided cell migration on a graded micropillar surface
AU - Krishnamoorthy, Srikumar
AU - Xu, Heqi
AU - Zhang, Zhengyi
AU - Xu, Changxue
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by Texas Tech University startup fund, and National Natural Science Foundation of China (51709120).
Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by Texas Tech University startup fund, and National
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, Institute of Machine Design and Operation. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Purpose: Guided cell migration refers to the engineering of local cell environment to specifically direct cell migration and has important applications such as utilization in cell sorting and wound healing assays. Graded micropillar surfaces have been utilized for achieving guided cell migration. Topographic parameters such as micropillar diameter and spacing gradient may have effects on the morphology of attached cells. It is critical to understand this interaction between the cells and the underlying microscale structures. Methods: In this study, a graded micropillar substrate has been fabricated to investigate the effects of the microtopography on the cell morphology in terms of the cell aspect ratio and cell circularity. Results: It is found that 1) with the increase of the micropillar diameter, the cell aspect ratio has no significance change. At the small spacing gradients, the aspect ratio is smaller than that at the large spacing gradients; 2) statistical analysis shows both the micropillar diameter and spacing gradient have no significant effect on the cell aspect ratio compared to the flat surface; 3) the cell circularity at the small micropillar diameters is higher than that at the large micropillar diameters. The cell circularity at the micropillar gradient of 0.1 µm is higher than those at the other micropillar gradients; and 4) three microtopographic conditions are considered to have statistically significant effect on the cell circularity compared to the flat surface, including the micropillar diameters of 5 µm and 10 µm and the spacing gradient of 0.1 µm.
AB - Purpose: Guided cell migration refers to the engineering of local cell environment to specifically direct cell migration and has important applications such as utilization in cell sorting and wound healing assays. Graded micropillar surfaces have been utilized for achieving guided cell migration. Topographic parameters such as micropillar diameter and spacing gradient may have effects on the morphology of attached cells. It is critical to understand this interaction between the cells and the underlying microscale structures. Methods: In this study, a graded micropillar substrate has been fabricated to investigate the effects of the microtopography on the cell morphology in terms of the cell aspect ratio and cell circularity. Results: It is found that 1) with the increase of the micropillar diameter, the cell aspect ratio has no significance change. At the small spacing gradients, the aspect ratio is smaller than that at the large spacing gradients; 2) statistical analysis shows both the micropillar diameter and spacing gradient have no significant effect on the cell aspect ratio compared to the flat surface; 3) the cell circularity at the small micropillar diameters is higher than that at the large micropillar diameters. The cell circularity at the micropillar gradient of 0.1 µm is higher than those at the other micropillar gradients; and 4) three microtopographic conditions are considered to have statistically significant effect on the cell circularity compared to the flat surface, including the micropillar diameters of 5 µm and 10 µm and the spacing gradient of 0.1 µm.
KW - Cell morphology
KW - Graded micropillar
KW - Guided cell interaction
KW - Microtopography
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116027915&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.37190/ABB-01736-2020-05
DO - 10.37190/ABB-01736-2020-05
M3 - Article
C2 - 34846032
AN - SCOPUS:85116027915
VL - 23
SP - 147
EP - 157
JO - Acta of Bioengineering and Biomechanics
JF - Acta of Bioengineering and Biomechanics
SN - 1509-409X
IS - 2
ER -