Superwettable Surface Engineering in Controlling Cell Adhesion for Emerging Bioapplications

Abstract

The dynamic liquid environment of live cells makes it necessary to consider the surface wettability when designing biomaterials and related devices. Especially superwettability, as the extreme state of wettability, has become a unique platform for regulating cell behaviors elaborately including adhesion, spreading, proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis, which elicits the promising applications on biomedicine and advanced biodevices. In this review, the controlling cell adhesion on superwettable engineering surfaces is summarized. Next, the related bioapplications utilizing the surface superwettability are recapitulated, including reversible surface wettability for cell capture/adhesion, superwettability-based patterns for cell arrays/aggregations construction, superwettability for antiplatelet adhesion, and superwettable surfaces as antimicrobial materials. Several design concepts are concluded on the emerging bioapplications of superwettable surface. Although so many efforts have been made for revealing the mechanism of cell functions on the superwettable surface, the complexity and variability between superwettable surface and liquid environment in physiological activities of organisms still requires impeccable theories, and the remaining unclear mechanisms of superwettability for biological systems are also discussed. As an outlook, the surface superwettability is just beginning to demonstrate its great potential in biology, offering great opportunities in tissue engineering, implantable devices, biosensors, drug-screening, and cancer diagnostics.

Tailoring Materials with Specific Wettability in Biomedical Engineering

“…[ 32 , 33 , 34 ] Benefitting by the development of cell biology and material science, 2D cell culture on various wettability biomaterials have been successfully constructed in a controllable manner. [ 42 , 43 , 128 , 129 , 130 , 131 , 132 , 133 , 134 , 135 ] In addition to 2D cell cultivation, the wettability biomaterials also show superiority in culturing 3D organoids, significantly to expand their biomedical applications. [ 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 ] Based on these features, the biomaterials with cell adhesion have displayed potential for constructing high throughput cell‐based assays.…”

Liquid Wells as Self‐Healing, Functional Analogues to Solid Vessels

“…In modern times, the manipulation and control of liquids on surfaces without solid walls sparked interest in various applications such as microfluidic devices, [ 1 ] lab‐on‐a‐chip, [ 2–3 ] repellent coatings, [ 4 ] oil–water separation, [ 5 ] and miniaturized chemistry or biology. [ 6–8 ] A commonly employed strategy is hydrophilic–hydrophobic chemically patterned surfaces, which allow spatial confinement of aqueous compartments. [ 9–15 ] Development of omniphobic–omniphilic or superoleophobic patterned substrates made it possible to confine droplets of low‐surface‐tension liquids (LSTLs) and significantly improved the capabilities of surface‐templated liquids.…”

The Mechanisms of Antibacterial Activity of Magnesium Alloys with Extreme Wettability

“…Finally, for non-wetting hierarchical surfaces, two additional mechanisms of antibacterial action come into play, namely the drastically reduced contact area between the substrate and the bacterial dispersion and the decreased adhesion force between the cell and the superhydrophobic surface. The latter inhibits the primary adhesion of the bacterial cells, causing a reduced cell deposition to the superhydrophobic surface and thus reducing bacterial contamination [ 5 , 38 , 39 , 40 ].…”