Thermoresponsive micropatterned substrates for single cell studies

Kalpana Mandal (1) , Martial Balland (1) , Lionel Bureau (1)

1 LIPhy - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique [Saint Martin d’Hères]

We describe the design of micropatterned surfaces for single cell studies, based on thermoresponsive polymer brushes. We show that brushes made of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) grafted at high surface density display excellent protein and cell anti-adhesive properties. Such brushes are readily patterned at the micron scale via deep UV photolithography. A proper choice of the adhesive pattern shapes, combined with the temperature-dependent swelling properties of PNIPAM, allow us to use the polymer brush as a microactuator which induces cell detachment when the temperature is reduced below 32degC.

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Kalpana Mandal, Martial Balland, Lionel Bureau. Thermoresponsive micropatterned substrates for single cell studies. PLoS ONE, 2012, pp.e37548. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0037548⟩. ⟨hal-00640115⟩