Microfabrication of Custom Collagen Structures Capable of Guiding Cell Morphology
and Alignment
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Abstract
The patterning of biological components
into structural analogues
of native tissues to simulate an environment for directing cell growth
is one important strategy in biomaterials fabrication. It is widely
accepted that chemical, mechanical, and topological cues from the
extracellular matrix (ECM) provide important signals for guiding cells
to exhibit characteristic polarity, orientation, and morphology. To
fully understand the delicate relationship between cell behavior and
ECM features, biomaterials fabrication requires improved techniques
for tailoring nano/microstructured patterns from relevant biological
building blocks rather than using nonbiological materials. Here we
reveal a unique approach for the nano/microfabrication of custom patterned
biomaterials using collagen as the sole building material. With this
new fabrication technique, we further revealed that custom collagen
patterns could direct the orientation and morphology of fibroblast
growth as a function of vertex density and pattern spacing. Our findings
suggest that this technique may be readily adopted for the free form
fabrication of custom cell scaffolds purely from natural biological
molecules including collagen, among other relevant ECM components