Surface Roughness, Porosity, and Texture as Modifiers of Cellular Adhesion

Abstract

Substrate topography in the micrometer range is reviewed as a modifier of the response of cultured cells and of biocompatibility when implanted into tissues. Characterization methods for substrate topography are discussed, including scanning electron microscopy, profilometry, laser scanning, and confocal microscopy. Because of the current technical limitations in reproducing micron-level topographic details, only one method, ion-beam etching, has been found suitable for texturing substrates on nonplanar surfaces.

The Biocompatibility Manifesto: Biocompatibility for the Twenty-first Century

“…The work was stimulated by almost 40 years of observation that the FBR to an implanted material is modulated by roughness, porosity, and/or texture [20][21][22][23]. Our porous scaffold materials, prepared by sphere templating, are characterized by a single pore size (in contrast to a pore size distribution), with pores spherical in shape and interconnected.…”

Patterning of Cells on Bioresist for Tissue Engineering Applications

“…From Figure 3, the groove depth in this study was found to be between 200 and 250 nm. It has been shown that cells such as fibroblasts react to depth as shallow as 70nm [7]. Ridge distance was also found to be an important factor for cell orientation and alignment.…”

Manufacturing of Biodegradable Scaffolds to Engineer Artificial Blood Vessel

“…Pores in a tissue-engineered scaffold make up the space in which cells reside. In this study, the majority of pore diameters are limited to the range of 25 to 100 μm (Figures 4-7) According to literature data of vascular grafts, the effective pore diameters for cell ingrowths are between 20 and 60 μm while for bone ingrowths the pore-diameters between 75 and 150 μm are required (35). The pore size that would permit adequate cellular infiltration has been suggested to be greater than 10 μm (9).…”