Selective Topography Directed Cell Adhesion on Spider Silk Surfaces

For tissue engineering applications, guided cell interaction with a biomaterial surface is one essential feature since, in natural tissue, cells constantly interact with their extracellular matrix, which provides different topographical, mechanical and biochemical stimuli. Therefore, the introduction of topographical surface features is one promising approach to direct material-cell interactions. In this study, maskless lithography and soft lithographic methods are used to produce recombinant spider silk films with size gradient patterns, including grooves, circles, squares, triangles, and stars, to enhance specific cell attachment. The influence of surface features on cell behavior is analyzed using eight different cell lines. It can be shown that surface indentations provide cellular attachment sites and guiding structures for restructuring, aligning, and adopting cell morphology, with a relation of cell to feature size for some of the cell lines investigated. Therefore, specific topographical surface modifications can be used to guide selective cell adhesion, allowing the generation of tissue-specifically modified implant surfaces in the future.