Efficient cell and cell-sheet harvesting based on smart surfaces coated with a multifunctional and self-organizing...

A wide range of smart surfaces with novel properties relevant for biomedical applications have been developed recently. Herein we focus on thermoresponsive surfaces that switch between cell-adherent and nonadherent states and their applications for cell harvesting. These smart surfaces are obtained by covalently coupling a tailored elastin-like recombinamer onto glass surfaces by means of the well-known and widely applied Click Chemistry methodology. The resulting recombinamer-functionalized surfaces have been characterized by means of water contact angle measurements, XPS and TOF-SIMS. A cell-based analysis of these surfaces with human fibroblasts showed a high degree of adhesion to the surface in its adherent state (37 °C), thus, promoting cell viability and proliferation. A temperature decrease triggers reorganization of the recombinamer, thus, markedly increasing the number of nonadherent domains and masking the adherent ones. This process allows a specific and efficient temporal control of cell adhesion and cell detachment. After determination of the properties required for a suitable cell-harvesting system, optimization of the process allows single cells or cell sheets from at least two types of cells (HFF-1 and ADSCs) to be rapidly harvested.