Control of Cell Adhesion and Growth with Micropatterned Supported Lipid Membranes

In this work, phospholipid bilayers are employed as biomimetic coating materials to modulate the adhesion and growth of cells on solid substrates. A variety of lipid compositions and charge densities are examined. Culturing cells on these supported membranes reveals that fluid lipid bilayers generally block cell adhesion with a notable exception provided by membranes containing phosphatidylserine, which strongly promote adhesion and growth. This dichotomy is utilized with micropatterned membrane technology to selectively direct cell growth to specified regions on a substrate. Lipid composition in micropatterned membrane arrays is demonstrated to be a simple and effective means of patterning cell growth on surfaces.