Micropatterning of Substrates for the Culture of Cell Networks by Stencil-Assisted Additive Nanofabrication

Autor: Anita Previdi, Claudio Piazzoni, Francesca Borghi, Carsten Schulte, Leandro Lorenzelli, Flavio Giacomozzi, Alessio Bucciarelli, Antonio Malgaroli, Jacopo Lamanna, Andrea Moro, Gabriella Racchetti, Alessandro Podestà, Cristina Lenardi, Paolo Milani
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Micromachines, Vol 12, Iss 1, p 94 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2072-666X
43729827
DOI: 10.3390/mi12010094
Popis: The fabrication of in vitro neuronal cell networks where cells are chemically or electrically connected to form functional circuits with useful properties is of great interest. Standard cell culture substrates provide ensembles of cells that scarcely reproduce physiological structures since their spatial organization and connectivity cannot be controlled. Supersonic Cluster Beam Deposition (SCBD) has been used as an effective additive method for the large-scale fabrication of interfaces with extracellular matrix-mimicking surface nanotopography and reproducible morphological properties for cell culture. Due to the high collimation of SCBD, it is possible to exploit stencil masks for the fabrication of patterned films and reproduce features as small as tens of micrometers. Here, we present a protocol to fabricate micropatterned cell culture substrates based on the deposition of nanostructured cluster-assembled zirconia films by stencil-assisted SCBD. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by the fabrication of micrometric patterns able to confine primary astrocytes. Calcium waves propagating in the astrocyte networks are shown.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals