Bottom-up engineering of the surface roughness of nanostructured cubic zirconia to control cell adhesion

Abstract

Nanostructured cubic zirconia is a strategic material for biomedical applications since it combines superior structural and optical properties with a nanoscale morphology able to control cell adhesion and proliferation. We produced nanostructured cubic zirconia thin films at room temperature by supersonic cluster beam deposition of nanoparticles produced in the gas phase. Precise control of film roughness at the nanoscale is obtained by operating in a ballistic deposition regime. This allows one to study the influence of nanoroughness on cell adhesion, while keeping the surface chemistry constant. We evaluated cell adhesion on nanostructured zirconia with an osteoblast-like cell line using confocal laser scanning microscopy for detailed morphological and cytoskeleton studies. We demonstrated that the organization of cytoskeleton and focal adhesion formation can be controlled by varying the evolution of surface nanoroughness.

Cluster-assembled cubic zirconia films with tunable and stable nanoscale morphology against thermal annealing

“…Parameters such as active surface area, surface roughness, and substrate topography are also critical for cell culturing 28 or for proteins and enzyme adsorption; 29 high surface area has significant advantage in catalysing gas reactions due to the increased adsorption capacity, and can often provide more active sites thus giving higher catalytic activity. 30 It is thus of primary importance to develop fabrication strategies for nanostructured zirconia films able to control not only the structure, phase, and dimensions of the individual nanoparticles, but also their assembling towards the intelligent design of properties such as specific area, micro and nanoscale porosity, and surface corrugation, that must be resilient against thermal treatments and annealing.…”

“…28 The use of supersonic expansions instead of effusive beams, as in standard cluster beam deposition, makes it possible the production of intense and highly collimated nanoparticle beams. 35 In SCBD, neutral clusters are accelerated in a carrier gas by the supersonic expansion; electrostatically accelerated ion clusters are not used therefore to assemble the nanostructured film.…”

Micro‐nanopatterning as tool to study the role of physicochemical properties on cell–surface interactions

“…In the last few years, methods for the fabrication of nanoscale controlled topographies have been developed utilizing lithographic and etching techniques derived from the silicon microelectronics industry and can now be used to tailor surface chemistry and surface topography to elucidate how cells respond to nanotopography. This has immensely augmented the process to tailor the surface chemistry and surface topography to elucidate the cellular behavior—importantly, cell adhesion (including bacterial), activation, and differentiation fate . Micro‐ and nano‐engineered tools and techniques have played a critical role in discovering binding interactions between the cells and their supporting environment to explore how cells respond to nanostructures, but more work is needed to comprehend the mechanisms underlying cell responses.…”

“…(D) Adherent human osteosarcoma cell MG‐63 on nanostructured zirconia maintain cellular integrity through a dynamic network of contractile actin stress fibers (red) that terminate in focal adhesion plaques (green). These molecular complexes intimately connect the cytoskeleton with the ECM which helps in cell adhesion on nanostructured surfaces (blue: DAPI stained cell nuclei, Author's personal data). [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com.]…”

Three‐dimensional patterning in biomedicine: Importance and applications in neuropharmacology

“…Microfluidic cell culture technology has significantly improved 2D cell culture via spatiotemporal control of the local cellular microenvironment at micrometer scale. It enables to generate gradients of soluble growth factors and selective tethering ECM molecules and cells in 3D, tuning the local cellular environment and allowing cells to experience the physicochemical influences that they encounter in vivo …”