STRESS-FREE ALIGNMENT OF CELLS ON HIGHLY-ALIGNED COLLAGEN NANOFIBERS

Abstract

This paper presents the optimization of collagen nanofiber alignments in 2D substrates and applies the optimized substrates for aligning cells without mechanical stresses during cultivation. In this work, we show that 1) the collagen nanofiber alignment is optimized by changing of cyclic stretch conditions such as frequency, strain, and time, and 2) the fabricated collagen substrate aligns cells without any mechanical stresses during cultivation, thus even enabling corneal stromal cell alignments which are known to be difficult using in-vitro cultivation. © 15CBMS-0001.