Simple surface engineering of polydimethylsiloxane with polydopamine for stabilized mesenchymal stem cell adhesion and multipotency

Abstract

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has been extensively exploited to study stem cell physiology in the field of mechanobiology and microfluidic chips due to their transparency, low cost and ease of fabrication. However, its intrinsic high hydrophobicity renders a surface incompatible for prolonged cell adhesion and proliferation. Plasma-treated or protein-coated PDMS shows some improvement but these strategies are often short-lived with either cell aggregates formation or cell sheet dissociation. Recently, chemical functionalization of PDMS surfaces has proved to be able to stabilize long-term culture but the chemicals and procedures involved are not user- and eco-friendly. Herein, we aim to tailor greener and biocompatible PDMS surfaces by developing a one-step bio-inspired polydopamine coating strategy to stabilize long-term bone marrow stromal cell culture on PDMS substrates. Characterization of the polydopamine-coated PDMS surfaces has revealed changes in surface wettability and presence of hydroxyl and secondary amines as compared to uncoated surfaces. These changes in PDMS surface profile contribute to the stability in BMSCs adhesion, proliferation and multipotency. This simple methodology can significantly enhance the biocompatibility of PDMS-based microfluidic devices for long-term cell analysis or mechanobiological studies.

Probing polydopamine adhesion to protein and polymer films: microscopic and spectroscopic evaluation

“…The mussel adhesive-inspired polydopamine (PD) appears to be an ideal biomaterial coating since it fulfils all these criteria. It exhibits low cytotoxicity [2], antibacterial properties [3,4], promotes cell growth [5][6][7][8], resists corrosion [9], can aid antibiotic release [10,11], is simple to produce with control over film thickness [12] and can be attached to a variety of surfaces including silanes [13], metals [9,14], polymers [7,[15][16][17] dentine [18] and even hair [19].…”

Facile Cell Sheet Harvest and Translocation Mediated by a Thermally Expandable Hydrogel with Controlled Cell Adhesion

“…[13][14][15] Deposition of PD onto biomaterials (pH = 8.5) is irrespective of their surface chemistry, which accelerated its application onto various substrates from metal to synthetic polymer used in tissue engineering and biochip approaches. [16][17][18] However, majority of these works involved functionalization of rigid and solid materials, and a limited number of studies have been available on soft materials such as hydrogels. [19] In addition, tuning dopamine coating on the hydrogels for modulating attachment and detachment of multiple cell types as a cell sheet has yet to be done.…”

A collagen based cryogel bioscaffold coated with nanostructured polydopamine as a platform for mesenchymal stem cell therapy

“…19–21 In addition, polydopamine has been shown to reduce the in vivo toxicity of implanted biomaterials because of its excellent biocompatibility while also providing a surface for the conjugation of a wide variety of molecules via simple chemical reactions. 22 …”