Micropatterns of a Cell-Adhesive Peptide on an Amphiphilic Comb Polymer Film

We report in this paper a generic method to modify the surfaces of common polymeric biomaterials that enables spatially resolved attachment and growth of mammalian cells in a biologically relevant milieu. We demonstrate that an amphiphilic comb polymer presenting short oligoethylene glycol side chains can be coated onto a number of different polymeric biomaterials, namely polystyrene, poly(methyl methacrylate), and poly(ethylene terephthalate) from a methanol/water mixture. The comb polymer film is stable in water and presents reactive COOH groups at the oligoethylene glycol chain ends, thereby permitting the surface of the comb polymer to be patterned with a cell adhesive, arg-gly-asp peptide. The micropatterned surfaces spatially confine the attachment and growth of fibroblasts for ∼24 h in 10% serum to the patterned regions.