Adhesive Peptides Modified with Long Spacers Encourage Human Corneal Epithelial Cell Attachment and Spreading

摘要

We have developed a novel method to control the presentation of ligands by systematicallyFigure 1. A-E) hTCEpi cell number per surface for a given spacer length. F-J ) hTCEpi projected cell area for a given PEG spacer length after 24 hours.changing the PEG spacer length between the ligand and bulk hydrogel. With these materials we have shown that there is a minimum linker length that supports cell attachment and spreading at low concentrations. In addition, cell spreading and attachment is similar on surfaces modified with ligands attached to PEG27 spacers or PEG77 spacers. The mechanism for the dependence on spacer length is unknown. We hypothesize that the flexibility of the longer chain supports rearrangement of the bioactive motifs. An alternative explanation is that the longer PEG chain increases relative RGD concentration that is available to interact with cells due to extension from the hydrogel.