Control of PC12 by micropatterned surfaces for neural regeneration studies

The control of neuron position and orienting axon outgrowth is a significant focus in the development of cell biosensors and the study of neural regeneration. During the development, neurons communicate with each other by growing out axons and dendrites to form network. For the central nerve system: brain and spinal cord, which are very limited in their ability to repair. A better resolution for the neural injury is through increasing the neural outgrowth and synapses in neural communication. This study was designed to answer the following questions: Are the microchannels (10mum in height and 7-100mum in width) effect both of the features in constraining PC12 cells and orienting axon outgrowth? Do microchannels change the natural behavior of PC12 in proliferation? As a model study, PC12 cell line has been widely used to study the neural regeneration. Understanding the influencing of microchannels in PC12 is important for tissue engineering and repair for neural injury. We observed that culture of PC12 cells in microchannels impacted in several properties: constrain and growing cells in the less aggregate phenomenon from microchannels 9-15mum in width. Cells were crossing over the microchannel at 7-8mum. PC12 neurons did not form neurites and axon outgrowth was not observed in all the microchannels, Taken together, these findings suggest that microchannels provide the ability of neural cells to localize focal adhesions and change the behavior of cell growth, which may help for the study of neural regeneration and the development of cell biosensors. Moreover, the less aggregate phenomenon of PC12 growing in the 9-15mum microchannels may be applied for increasing the transfection efficiency of PC12 cells. Microchannels can be further applied towards the fabrication of synthetic platform to constrain PC12 neurons, orient neurites, and promote the repairing of neural injury by increasing neurites communication