Biomolecular Patterning of 3-Dimensional Polymeric Microscaffolds for Targeted Cell Attachment

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Two groups from the respective fields of soft matter synthesis and cell biology join forces to develop precision light triggered chemistries for the bio- functionalization of three dimensional direct laser written (DLW) polymer microscaffolds. One aim is to apply these patterned functional scaffolds for the attachment of epithelial and endothelial cells in order to probe the possibility of inducing apicobasal polarity. In addition, cellular forces applied by fibroblasts will be measured in relation to the adhesion geometry, the number and size of adhesion sites, the type of extracellular matrix (ECM) or cell adhesion molecules presented to the same cell. The project is divided into two separate, yet intertwined work programs: The polymer chemistry oriented work program seeks to built on our preliminary work in the field of employing light triggered chemistry in a spatially resolved fashion for biomolecule surface immobilization by critically expanding the available light triggered chemistries in terms of the reaction type and thus wavelength regime employed for the attachment (either in terms of post-DLW functionalization or in situ DLW functionalization processes) as well as by providing approaches to unconjugate cell attachments by light induced reversible chemistries. In addition, the polymer chemistry part of the project will provide access to efficient passivation approaches for the site specifically functionalized scaffolds as well as to DLW written scaffolds of variable stiffness. The biologically driven work program will capitalize on the developed chemical tools by building a library of cell signaling molecules that can be tethered to the DLW written photoreactive scaffolds. The herein developed methods will provide a basis to systematically study the combined impacts of three-dimensionality, of the spatial distribution of adhesion/signaling proteins, and of environmental mechanics on cell behavior at the single cellular level.