Template-free fabrication of vertically-aligned polymer nanowire array on the flat-end tip for quantifying the single living cancer cells and nanosurface interaction

Biran Wang, Liming Wang, Xi Li, Yuchen Liu, Zimeng Zhang, Erik Hedrick, Stephen Safe, Jingjing Qiu, Guohui Lu, Shiren Wang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

We fabricated vertically aligned polyaniline (PANI) nanowire arrays on flat-end AFM tips via template-free methods. 4-Aminothiophenol was used for tailoring the nucleation size, chain propagation and orientation of the PANI nanowires. The microscopy characterization indicated that diameter was centered at a mean of 33.7 nm with a standard deviation of 6.5 nm, and length was centered at a mean of 50.3 nm with a standard deviation of 7.6 nm. PANI nanowire arrays are non-toxic, low-cost, and tunable, and thus PANI nanowire-grown tips could perfectly simulate different nanosurfaces. Via the force spectroscopy, we demonstrate the feasibility in real-time quantifying the nanostructure-cell interactions at the single cell level with high reliability and accuracy. This work will enable a new tool in precisely quantifying the interactions of single living cells and nanosurface, and thus opens a new door to understand how single living cells sense and respond to the specific nanostructures.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)27-31
Number of pages5
JournalManufacturing Letters
Volume16
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2018

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