Screening the attachment and spreading of bone marrow-derived and adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells on porous silicon gradients

Abstract

Nanoscale surface topography exerts profound effects on stem cell behaviour. Detailed knowledge of these effects is of key relevance to the development of advanced materials for tissue engineering. In order to gain such knowledge, high-throughput platforms for characterising cell-surface interactions are required. One suitable platform technology involves the use of lateral gradients where a continuous variation in a chemical or physical surface parameter of choice is investigated. Here, we fabricate porous silicon (pSi) gradients displaying pore sizes ranging from approximately 2 μm down to a few nm in diameter, and changing in solid surface fraction from 15% to 95% along the 12 mm length o..