Nanomaterials

In collaboration with Prof. Fan Ren, we have developed an approach to prevent cell adhesion on surfaces by coating the surface with a dense layer of upright nanorods (see figure). Dense monolayers of randomly oriented, upright nanorods cause a significant decrease in the numbers of adherent fibroblasts and endothelial cells. The viability of fibroblasts and endothelial cells on nanorods is also significantly decreased. Our current hypothesis is that the nanorods interfere with the clustering of integrin receptors that are present in the cell membrane, thus decreasing adhesion between the cell and the surface. Read Lee et al to learn more.

 

Cells cannot spread on nanorods. Left: SEM of nanorods coated on glass coverslip. Middle: Representative SEM image of single NIH 3T3 fibroblast on nanorods. Most of cells on nanorods were round and they did not form protrusions (inset). This caused cell death in the adherent cells. Scale bar in left image is 500 nm, middle image is 3 µm and inset is 1 µm.

  Lee J*, Chu BH, Chen KH, Ren F, Lele TP. (2009) “Randomly oriented, upright SiO2 coated nanorods for reduced adhesion of mammalian cells”, Biomaterials, 30, 4488–4493

 Lee J, Kang BS, Chancellor TJ, Chu BH, Wang HT, Keselowsky B, Ren F and Lele TP, “The control of cell adhesion and viability by zinc oxide nanorods", Biomaterials, 29 (2008) 3743–3749