Dendrimer surface orientation of the RGD peptide affects mesenchymal stem cell adhesion

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are promising candidates for a range of tissue regeneration applications. Adequate scaffolds are necessary for their application in vivo, where interactions between cells and the surface material are critical. Arginine-glycine-aspartic acid tripeptides (RGD) were conjugated to polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers and used to pre-treat test surfaces. We demonstrate that pretreatment with dendrimer-presented tripeptides efficiently increases MSC adhesion to a polystyrene test surface, and that treatment effectiveness is related to how tripeptides are presented by the dendrimer to the cell. We tested both R-G-D-dendrimer and dendrimer-R-G-D arrangements and found the former to be optimal in terms of surface adhesion.