Conventional cell patterning methods are mainly based on hydrophilic/hydrophobic differences or chemical coating for cell adhesion/non-adhesion with wavering strength as it varies with the substrate surface conditions, including the cell type and the extracellular matrix components (ECMs) coating; thus, the versatility and stability of cell patterning methods must be improved. In this study, we propose a new cell patterning method using a light-responsive gas-generating polymer (LGP) and a conventional fluorescence microscope. Herein, cells and cellular tissues are easily released from the substrate surface by the nitrogen gas bubbles generated from LGP by the excitation light for fluorescence observation without harming the cells. The LGP-implanted chip was fabricated by packing LGP into a polystyrene (PS) microarray chip with a concave pattern. HeLa cells were spread on the LGP-implanted chips coated with three different ECMs (fibronectin, collagen, and poly-D-lysine), and all HeLa cells on the three LGP patterns were released. The pattern error between the LGP pattern and the remaining HeLa cells was 8.81 ± 4.24 μm, less than single-cell size. In addition, the LGP-implanted chip method can be applied to millimeter-scale patterns, with less than 30 s required for cell patterning. Therefore, the proposed method is a simple and rapid cell patterning method with high cell patterning accuracy of less than the cell size error, high scalability, versatility, and stability unaffected by the cell type or the ECM coating.
Keywords: cell chips; cell microarray; cell patterning; functional polymers; lab-on-a-chip; light-responsive gas-generating polymer.