Probing cancer cell responses via using physically-modified chitosan nanosponges

This paper describes the development of physically-modified chitosan nanosponges to probe cellular behaviors and molecular-level structural responses of MDA-MB-231 cells (human breast cancer cells) adhered onto these modified nanosponges. After 4 and 12 hours culture, MDA-MB-231 cells were investigated to decipher the cellular responses on these chitosan nanosponges through using scanning electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy. We found that MDA-MB-231 cells exhibited distinct structurally based responses attributable to chitosan nanosponges that we demonstrate as possibly applicable, for drug screening applications. In addition, we developed a chitosan-based micropatterning procedure that allowed us to re-arrange mammalian cells (i.e., HeLa cells in this study, for cancer drug screening) at the desired locations (with a single-cell array format). We believe that this study would provide further understanding of naturally derived biomaterials and facilitate the development of new biomedical devices with unique cell-material interface properties and characteristics, such as in-vitro cell culture and diagnostic platforms.