Small-world networks of neuroblastoma cells cultured in three-dimensional polymeric scaffolds featuring multi-scale roughness.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the mechanisms underlying cell-surface interaction is of fundamental importance for the rational design of scaffolds aiming at tissue engineering, tissue repair and neural regeneration applications. Here, we examined patterns of neuroblastoma cells cultured in three-dimensional polymeric scaffolds obtained by two-photon lithography. Because of the intrinsic resolution of the technique, the micrometric cylinders composing the scaffold have a lateral step size of ~200 nm, a surface roughness of around 20 nm, and large values of fractal dimension approaching 2.7. We found that cells in the scaffold assemble into separate groups with many elements per group. After cell wiring, we found that resulting networks exhibit high clustering, small path lengths, and small-world characteri

SUBMITTER: Onesto V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6975141 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature