Monitoring Cell Adhesion on Polycaprolactone-Chitosan Films with Varying Blend Ratios by Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation

Ayşe Buse Özdabak Sert, Eva Bittrich, Petra Uhlmann, Fatma Nese Kok, Abdulhalim Kılıç*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A detailed understanding of the cell adhesion on polymeric surfaces is required to improve the performance of biomaterials. Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) as a surface-sensitive technique has the advantage of label-free and real-time monitoring of the cell-polymer interface, providing distinct signal patterns for cell-polymer interactions. In this study, QCM-D was used to monitor human fetal osteoblastic (hFOB) cell adhesion onto polycaprolactone (PCL) and chitosan (CH) homopolymer films as well as their blend films (75:25 and 25:75). Complementary cell culture assays were performed to verify the findings of QCM-D. The thin polymer films were successfully prepared by spin-coating, and relevant properties, i.e., surface morphology, ζ-potential, wettability, film swelling, and fibrinogen adsorption, were characterized. The adsorbed amount of fibrinogen decreased with an increasing percentage of chitosan in the films, which predominantly showed an inverse correlation with surface hydrophilicity. Similarly, the initial cell sedimentation after 1 h resulted in lesser cell deposition as the chitosan ratio increased in the film. Furthermore, the QCM-D signal patterns, which were measured on the homopolymer and blend films during the first 18 h of cell adhesion, also showed an influence of the different interfacial properties. Cells fully spread on pure PCL films and had elongated morphologies as monitored by fluorescence microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Corresponding QCM-D signals showed the highest frequency drop and the highest dissipation. Blend films supported cell adhesion but with lower dissipation values than for the PCL film. This could be the result of a higher rigidity of the cell-blend interface because the cells do not pass to the next stages of spreading after secretion of their extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins. Variations in the QCM-D data, which were obtained at the blend films, could be attributed to differences in the morphology of the films. Pure chitosan films showed limited cell adhesion accompanied by low frequency drop and low dissipation.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)17017-17027
Number of pages11
JournalACS Omega
Volume8
Issue number19
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 May 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.

Funding

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Dr. Fatma Neşe Kök, the authors’ beloved colleague who passed away. This work was supported by Scientific Research Projects of the Department of Istanbul Technical University (Grant no: TGA-2021-42423). The authors acknowledge Alexander Münch and Patricia Flemming for supporting the film preparation, Hannes Kettner for AFM measurements, Anja Caspari for ζ-potential measurements, Mikhail Malanin (all IPF) for FTIR measurements, Alperen Tuncer and Prof. Dr. Gamze Torun Köse for their help in fluorescence imaging, and Süleyman Çelik for SEM imaging. A.B.Ö.S. gratefully acknowledges the financial support from YÖK-YUDAB and from Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung for her research visit. C was created with BioRender.com.

FundersFunder number
Istanbul Teknik ÜniversitesiTGA-2021-42423

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