Vertically aligned patterned peptide nanowires for cellulars studies

Over the years, scientific studies have shown that one crucial point when designing biological platforms is the strict environmental conditions required for cell and tissue culturing, such as pH, temperature, medium content and other parameters which affect the system’s biocompatibility. Because of these constrains, biological-based substrates such as self-assembled peptide nanostructures make an excellent candidate as a material, due to the inherent properties they hold, such as mechanical and chemical stability, various functionalization options, and mild, fast and cheap synthesis conditions .

Recently, our group has demonstrated that vertically aligned diphenylalanine based peptide nanowires (VAPNW) are an useful tool for cellular studies and sensor applications. To expand this study, we patterned VAPNWs into strips of various widths onto an electrode surface to evaluate these structures’ effects on cell growth and adherence using PC12 cells, which are neuronal stem cell models.

With this method we are able to obtain important information about the cells’ preference for culture substrate, comparing the adhesion of cells to a forest of VAPNWs with standard protein substrate enhancers such as laminine. Combining this work with other approaches like discrete functionalization of VAPNWs will reveal possible future tools for cellular studies and biosensing.