THE FUNCTIONAL RESPONSE OF MESENCHYMAL STEM CELLS TO ELECTRON BEAM-PATTERNED ELASTOMERIC SURFACES PRESENTING MICRON TO NANOSCALE HETEROGENEOUS RIGIDITY

Cells directly probe and respond to the physicomechanical properties of their extracellular environment, a dynamic process which has been shown to play a key role in regulating both cellular adhesive processes and differential function. Recent studies indicate that stem cells show lineage-specific differentiation when cultured on substrates approximating the stiffness profiles of specific tissues. Although tissues are associated with ranging Young's modulus values for bulk rigidity, at the sub-cellular level, and particularly at the micro- and nanoscales, tissues are comprised of heterogeneous distributions of rigidity. Lithographic processes have been widely explored in cell biology for the generation of analytical substrates to probe cellular physicomechanical responses. In this work, we show for the first time that that direct-write e-beam exposure can significantly alter the rigidity of elastomeric PDMS substrates and develop a new class of two-dimensional elastomeric substrates with controlled patter...