Modulation of Heterotypic and Homotypic Cell-Cell Interactions via Zwitterionic Lipid Masks

Since the pioneering work by Whitesides, innumerable platforms that aim to spatio-selectively seed cells and control the degree of cell-cell interactions in vitro have been developed. These methods, however, have generally been technically and methodologically complex, or demanded stringent materials and conditions. In this work, we introduce zwitterionic lipids as patternable, cell-repellant masks for selectively seeding cells. The lipid masks are easily removed with a routine washing step under physiological conditions (37 °C, pH 7.4), and are used to create patterned cocultures, as well as to conduct cell migration studies. We demonstrate, via patterned cocultures of NIH 3T3 fibroblasts and HeLa cells, that HeLa cells proliferate far more aggressively than NIH 3T3 cells, regardless of initial population sizes. We also show that fibronectin-coated substrates induce cell movement akin to collective migration in NIH 3T3 fibroblasts, while the cells cultured on unmodified substrates migrate independently. Our lipid mask platform offers a rapid and highly biocompatible means of selectively seeding cells, and acts as a versatile tool for the study of cell-cell interactions.