Enhanced cell adhesion on RGDS-carrying keratin film

Keratin, which was extracted from wool as a reduced form, was subjected to modification with cell adhesion peptide, Arg-Gly-Asp-Ser (RGDS), at free cysteine residues. L929 mouse fibroblast cells were cultured on micro cover glasses coated with various amounts of keratin or RGDS-carrying keratin. One hour after cell inoculation, more cells adhered on RGDS-carrying keratin-coated surface than on a plain glass or untreated keratin-coated glass surfaces. The cell number adhered on RGDS-carrying keratin-coated surface increased with an increasing amount of coated proteins, while that on keratin-coated glass was unaffected by the amount of coated proteins. Significant number of cells with spindle-shape morphology was observed on RGDS-carrying keratin-coated surface, while the cells on a plain glass or keratin-coated glass surfaces had round morphology. Upon cultivation for 24 h, the cells on RGDS-carrying keratin-coated glass proliferated well to reach confluence, while cells on keratin-coated or untreated glasses remained sparse. Thus, RGDS-carrying keratin was found to be a good substrate for mammalian cells because of their high cell adhesive property. And keratin was demonstrated to be potential biomaterials applicable to versatile purposes by introducing modifications to abundantly present cysteine residues.