Inkjet printing of protein microarrays on freestanding polymeric nanofilms for spatio-selective cell culture environment

In the last years, an increasing interest in bio-hybrid systems for what concerns the precise control of cell-material interactions has emerged. This trend leads towards the development of new nano-structured devices such as bioMEMS, tissue-engineering scaffolds, biosensors, etc. In the present study, we focused on the development of a spatio-selective cell culture environment based on the inkjet printing of bio-patterns on polymeric ultra-thin films (nanofilms) composed of poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA). Freestanding PMMA nanofilms having hundreds-of-nm thickness were prepared by spin-coating. Different shapes of cell adhesion promoters such as poly (L-lysine) (PLL) were micropatterned by inkjet printing. Moreover, to promote cell adhesion, the surface of PLL microarrays was modified with fibronectin via electorostatic interaction. The selective deposition of C2C12 skeletal muscle cells was confirmed and their viability was qualitatively assessed after 24 h. The combination of muscular cells with protein micropatterned freestanding nanofilm is beneficial for the implementation of new bio-hybrid system in muscular tissue engineering.