作者
Stefania Di Cio, Julien Gautrot
简介
Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine aim to develop materials that mimic human tissues with the purpose of replacing them when they are compromised, as for degenerative diseases. Important to this aim is the understanding of processes occurring at the cell-biomaterials interface. Cells can sense and respond to chemical and physical stimuli coming from their surroundings (the extracellular matrix-ECM) ultimately deciding whether to adhere or not to them [1]. Cell adhesion is a complex process which involves recruiting of molecules to focal adhesion clusters and coupling of shear stress at the cell membrane to the actin cytoskeleton, and which activates a cascade of signalling pathways that control cell behaviour and, in the case of stem cells, cell fate [2]. Scientists have modified the surface of materials at the nanoscale via either chemical [3] or topographical [4]-[6] patterning techniques to assess how …