Abstract
The ability to control the spatial organization of single cells is critical in biomedically-relevant applications, and has provided tremendous insights in various research communities such as cell biology, bioengineering, as well as developmental biology. Functional nerves or blood vessels, for example, only can be formed when groups of cells are organized and aligned into specific geometries (or patterns). Here we proposed a method, which is a combination of photolithography, electrochemical etching and solvent-casting technique, to prepare nanotexture-micropattern chitosan substrates. We demonstrated that mammalian cells (e.g., MDCK cells and HeLa cells) would sense the surface topographies of our substrates and form our designed patterns with micrometer-scale features (e.g., triangle, square, circular, heart and English letters). Our biocompatible and biodegradable chitosan substrates provide researchers with reliable alternative method of cell micropatterning and have a great potential in biomedical-relevant applications.