Fabrication of Micropatterned Polymeric Nanowire Arrays
for High-Resolution Reagent Localization and Topographical Cellular
Control
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Abstract
Herein,
we present a novel approach for the fabrication of micropatterned
polymeric nanowire arrays that addresses the current need for scalable
and customizable polymer nanofabrication. We describe two variations
of this approach for the patterning of nanowire arrays on either flat
polymeric films or discrete polymeric microstructures and go on to
investigate biological applications for the resulting polymeric features.
We demonstrate that the micropatterned arrays of densely packed nanowires
facilitate rapid, low-waste drug and reagent localization with micron-scale
resolution as a result of their high wettability. We also show that
micropatterned nanowire arrays provide hierarchical cellular control
by simultaneously directing cell shape on the micron scale and influencing
focal adhesion formation on the nanoscale. This nanofabrication approach
has potential applications in scaffold-based cellular control, biological
assay miniaturization, and biomedical microdevice technology