Facile preparation of biopatternable surface for selective immobilization from bacteria to mammalian cells

A facile route for cell patterning on functionalized surface with polyelectrolyte (PEL) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) microstructures is presented. Controlled cell adhesion is achieved by a micromolding in capillaries (MIMIC) on PEL coated surface, which produced two orthogonal regions including PEG region as physical and biological barriers to the nonspecific binding of cells and PEL surface for promoting cell adhesion. Our simple method but universal platform shows the first capable of versatile cell patterning from bacteria to animal cells. Although the adhesive proteins are necessary for the successful cell adhesion, our proposed method provide affordable surface for cell adhesion without adhesive proteins. In addition, the approach will be easily applied to various substrates such as glass, silicon, silicon oxide, and polymers.