%0 Journal Article
%T Engineering stable topography in dense bio-mimetic 3D collagen scaffolds
%A T Alekseeva
%A E Hadjipanayi
%A EA Abou Neel
%A RA Brown
%J European Cells and Materials (ECM)
%D 2012
%I 
%X Topographic features are well known to influence cell behaviour and can provide a powerful tool for engineering complex, functional tissues. This study aimed to investigate the mechanisms of formation of a stable micro-topography on plastic compressed (PC) collagen gels. The uni-directional fluid flow that accompanies PC of collagen gels creates a fluid leaving surface (FLS) and a non-fluid leaving surface (non-FLS). Here we tested the hypothesis that the resulting anisotropy in collagen density and stiffness between FLS and non-FLS would influence the fidelity and stability of micro-grooves patterned on these surfaces. A pattern template of parallel-aligned glass fibres was introduced to the FLS or non-FLS either at the start of the compression or halfway through, when a dense FLS had already formed. Results showed that both early and late patterning of the FLS generated grooves that had depth (25 ¡À7 ¦Ìm and 19 ¡À8 ¦Ìm, respectively) and width (55 ¡À11 ¦Ìm and 50 ¡À12 ¦Ìm, respectively) which matched the glass fibre diameter (50 ¦Ìm). In contrast, early and late patterning of the non-FLS gave much wider (151 ¡À50 ¦Ìm and 89 ¡À14 ¦Ìm, respectively) and shallower (10 ¡À2.7 ¦Ìm and 13 ¡À3.5 ¦Ìm, respectively) grooves than expected. The depth to width ratio of the grooves generated on the FLS remained unaltered under static culture conditions over 2 weeks, indicating that grooves were stable under long term active cell-mediated matrix remodelling. These results indicate that the FLS, characterised by a higher matrix collagen density and stiffness than the non-FLS, provides the most favourable mechanical surface for precise engineering of a stable micro-topography in 3D collagen hydrogel scaffolds.
%K Plastic compressed collagen
%K stable surface topology
%K micro-moulding
%K phosphate-based glass fibres
%U http://www.ecmjournal.org/journal/papers/vol023/pdf/v023a03.pdf