Strongly Binding Cell-Adhesive Polypeptides of Programmable Valencies

摘要

The control of interactions between cells and materials is a topic of fundamental interest in materials science, surface chemistry, and micropatterning technologies. Currently, cellular interactions with biomaterials are commonly controlled by using only a limited set of molecules, such as fibronectin, laminin, and peptides derived from them (RGD and YIGSR, respectively). Although short linear peptides offer increased stability and control over surface density, they do not generally exhibit the binding strength of whole proteins. Moreover, it is difficult to systematically vary binding strengths to enable quantitative experiments for studying cellular interactions with materials and surfaces. Herein, we show that polypeptides can be engineered in such a way that the valencies of the cell-adhesion region can be precisely programmed and systematically varied (up to precisely 80 copies of a RGD repeat) to enable strong and tunable interactions between cells and materials. We also demonstrate the programmable binding strengths on the basis of a well-controlled microfluidic-flow setup for the study of cell binding.