Bootstrap analysis of the relation between initial adhesive events and long-term cellular functions of human osteoblasts cultured on biocompatible metallic substrates

Classically, the evaluation of cellular adhesion of cells on substrates is limited to the evaluation of cell attachment after some hours. We have claimed for several years that this evaluation is incomplete concerning the evaluation of cell adhesion and more precisely of the quality of the in vitro cell/biomaterial interface. With a view to demonstrating this assertion, we develop in this paper statistical correlations between short-term adhesion (STA) evaluating the attachment after 24 h (IA: initial attachment) and long-term adhesion (LTA) evaluating the strength of the cell/matrix substrate interface over 21 days of culture (AP: adhesion power). Additionally, as the adhesion phase is known to influence further growth of cells we proceed to the correlation of STA with the number of cells after 21 days. We demonstrate statistically the expected positive relation existing between STA and cell growth and we show that this relation is totally independent of the substrate’s surface topography or chemistry. More surprisingly, we demonstrate the absence of correlation between IA and AP. This illustrates the fact that different mechanisms underlie STA and LTA. Moreover, this study demonstrates that the evaluation of the number of attached cells after some hours cannot let us presume either that cells will survive or that they will adhere at later times by forming a complex cell/substrate interface by synthesis of extracellular matrix proteins. Finally, the originality of this work lies in the extensive statistical correlation analysis performed between biological parameters describing the cell behaviour on a substrate.