Different Alignment Between Skeletal and Smooth Muscle Cells on Reduced Graphene Oxide-Patterned Arrays

Abstract

Cells respond directly to the chemical and topographical cues of the engineered substrate. To date, recent extensive studies have been witnessed on the wide development of biomimetic substrates that can regulate the cellular behaviors by establishing the specific cues of the substrate. It is well known that the topographical features with nanoscale and microscale strongly modulate the behaviors of cells, including adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation. Herein, we present a simple and robust strategy to generate the patterned arrays of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) on a substrate to be used for the cellular interfaces. The rGO patterned arrays were prepared by an evaporative self-assembly process, which is a highly efficient technique for the controlled deposition of rGO sheets on a flat substrate. Such periodic patterned arrays of rGO could be utilized as a micron topographic substratum for living cell culture to observe the growth and alignment behaviors of C2C12 skeletal and vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). The exquisite evaluations showed that both cells were regularly grown along the rGO patterned arrays leading to the well-defined contact guidance, but the only C2C12 myoblasts exhibited slightly higher level in the morphological alignment features to the rGO patterned arrays, compared to the VSMCs. Our findings suggest that the nanotextured thin films and patterned arrays of rGO can serve as promising biomimetic substrates for skeletal muscle cells and provide subtle effects on cellular morphology discriminating in their responses.