3-D hierarchical wrinkled micro-pillars for anti-cells proliferation surfaces

Fabrication of dual-scale roughness in a large area of biocompatible superhydrophobic surfaces was presented in this paper. Three dimensional (3-D) dual-scale roughness was achieved using a combination of top-down process by replica molding to make an ordered micro-pillars on poly-(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) as the soft base material and bottom-up process by deposition of diamond like amorphous carbon (DLC) as a hard-coating using radio frequency-chemical vapor desposition (RF-CVD) to produce nanoscale wrinkle structures. The extreme superhydrophobicity of the as-prepared surfaces was used as the culturing template of calf pulmonary artery endothelial (CPAE) cells for 3 days. We discovered that CPAE cells will be more adhered on surfaces with only microstructure compared to hierarchical structures. In particular, the reduced filopodia extension during cell growth was caused by disconnected focal adhesions on the pillar pattern. This limited cell adhesion could prevent undesired growth and proliferation of biological species on the surface of biomedical devices such as stents, implants or even injection syringes.