Valvular Interstitial Cells Attachment and Proliferation on Self Assambled Monolayer Presenting Different Surface Chemistry

Tissue engineering relies on cells seeded on a biodegradable scaffold to grow living functional replacement tissue. Recently it has been shown that the physical properties of the scaffold material such as stiffness, surface topography, and surface chemistry can also be used to regulate cellular functions such as attachment, proliferation, phenotypic expression, and extracellular matrix production. Our overall goal is to design material scaffolds for the engineering of aortic heart valve leaflets. In this study, self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkanethiols on gold-coated glass substrates were employed as model surfaces to isolate and investigate the effect of surface chemistry on the attachment, proliferation and phenotypic expression of the cells of the aortic heart valves, valvular interstitial cells (VICs). SAMs presenting well defined chemistry surfaces were created to examine the effects of hydrophobic (CH3) hydrophilic (OH) negative charged (COOH) and positive charged (NH2) on VIC functions. SAMs were characterized by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) measurements and goniometry ( CH3: 107o +/- 2, OH: 23o +/- 4, COOH: 22 +/- 4). VICs were seeded on the surfaces and viability was assessed after 0.5, 1, 3 and 5 days. Further work will examine the effect of material surface chemistry on extra cellular matrix production. Understanding the interactions of cells with well defined surface chemistries will allow for the design of scaffolds that direct ECM production for the engineering of aortic valve tissue.