The complete recovery of tissues or cells damaged by an accident or illness is a major issue in medicine. With increasing medical costs and incidences of incurable diseases, this aspect is emerging as an important human health problem worldwide. However, reproducing actual cells and tissues is not easy because of the involvement of several variables. External environmental changes such as different pH levels, the presence of oxidants, and ultraviolet exposure can impair cell function or trigger cell death owing to the limitations of the cells. In addition, transplanted therapeutic cells die easily owing to inflammatory and immune responses. Efforts to overcome this problem through multilayer cell coating can provide avenues for diagnosis and basic cell biology studies owing to the following features of multilayer films: (i) high capacity available for attaching different biomolecules; (ii) natural replication of signal molecule diffusion across cells; and (iii) the possibility of cell patterning. Furthermore, light-triggered release from multilayer films achieves the delivery of biomolecules with a high spatiotemporal resolution. In this study, we reviewed the methods and recent innovations in multilayer cell coatings that demonstrate a strong potential for applications in biomolecule loading, cell patterning, and biosensors.
Keywords: cell coating; cell encapsulation; layer assembly; layer-by-layer coating; multilayers; polymer.