Plasma Treatment Enhances Cytocompatibility on Patterned Perfluoroethylene Propylene

This study aims to construct patterns with defined shapes on perfluoroethylene propylene (FEP) via a replication process that has potential applications in tissue engineering. Our focus was on creating ripple periodic submicron-scale structures and subsequently activating them with argon plasma. Plasma activation of the replicated pattern on FEP substrates proved to be an effective, easy-to-execute and cost-efficient treatment method. Structured and activated carriers were prepared to study targeted cell growth in terms of cell adhesion and proliferation. Furthermore, the carriers were used to influence cell shape and the direction of the cell growth based on the properties of the pattern, primarily its morphology and dimensions. The carriers were seeded with human Wharton's jelly stromal cells and their metabolic activity and morphology were studied using a resazurin assay and fluorescence staining of the actin cytoskeleton and cell nuclei. We found that plasma treatment improves cell adhesion of the material more effectively than patterning the material with submicron-scale grooves (approximately 500 nm wide). However, this patterning enhances the susceptibility of the material to plasma modification, as evidenced by the subsequent improvement in cell growth.