Premium
Tailored Combinatorial Microcompartments through the Self‐Organization of Microobjects: Assembly, Characterization, and Cell Studies
Author(s) -
Song Qimeng,
Steuber Marc,
Druzhinin Sergey I.,
Schönherr Holger
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201814076
Subject(s) - wetting , nanotechnology , self assembly , materials science , coating , characterization (materials science) , capillary action , polymer , composite material
A new concept enables the generation of cell microenvironments by microobject assembly at an water/air interface. As the orientation of 30 μm sized polymer cubes and their capillary force assembly are controlled by the surface wettability, which in turn can be modulated by coating the initially exposed surfaces with gold and self‐assembled monolayers, unique niches in closely packed arrays of cubes with vertex up orientation can be realized. The random assembly of distinctly different cubes, prefunctionalized or surface‐structured exclusively on their top surface, facilitates the parallel generation of different microenvironments in a combinatorial manner, which paves the way to future systematic structure–property relationship studies with cells.