Mechanical forces in the cell’s natural environment have a crucial impact on growth, differentiation and behavior. Few areas of biology can be understood without taking into account how both individual cells and networks of cells sense and transduce physical stresses. However, the field is currently held back by the limitations of the available methods to apply physiologically relevant stress profiles on cells, particularly with sub-cellular resolution, in controlled in vitro experiments. Here we report a new type of active cell culture material that allows highly localized, directional, and reversible deformation of the cell growth substrate, with control at scales ranging from the entire surface to the subcellular, and response times on the order of a few seconds. This material has a hybrid architecture composed of an array of microstructure actuators embedded in a temperature-responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel layer with the microstructure tips serving as anchorage points for adherent cells. We show that by incorporating gold nanorods as a photo-transducer component into the hydrogel, we are able to remotely control the localized and highly directional actuation of the supported microstructures. Our dynamic cell culture material allows precise control over cell position and orientation, with resolution over the distortion of the selected area of ~10 mm, local cell strains up to ~45%, and cyclic actuation frequencies of ~0.1Hz. These capabilities are not matched by any other method, and this versatile material has the potential to bridge the performance gap between the existing single cell micro-manipulation and 2D cell sheet mechanical stimulation techniques.

Photothermally triggered actuation of hybrid materials as a new platform for in vitro cell manipulation

254th National Meeting (2017)

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