Development, characterization and applications of a direct, general method to photochemically generate patterns and gradients on planar glass substrates, corrugated substrates and in highly porous collagen-GAG scaffolds

Recent surface chemical approaches to physically modeling the extra-cellular matrix (ECM) have provided invaluable insight into the molecular nature of cell adhesion and have clearly established the contributions of altered cell adhesion to disease onset and progression. In order to better understand the complex relationships between the many molecules involved in cell adhesion, we have developed a general method to create multi-component biological surface gradients that present multiple, distinct adhesive molecules onto planar substrates, corrugated substrates and the surface of collagen-GAG scaffolds at varied concentrations, and in defined geometric patterns. In our approach the generation of a light density gradient across a photo-active benzophenone monolayer will form covalent linkages between a solution phase biomolecule and the surface, resulting in the transfer of the photon gradient to a biomolecular gradient. The method is promising for the direct generation of complex, multi-component patterns or gradients of biomolecules, which may serve as biomolecularly relevant models of the ECM. Future work will focus on applying multi-component biomolecular patterns and gradients to investigations of cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation