Establishment of functional cell culture model by controlling interactions between cells and polymer thin film based culture substrate

Abstract

In vitro cell culture, a method capable of studying the behavior of animal cells in a controlled environment, can be the basis for various studies, including biomedical engineering and regenerative medicine. To date, various in vitro cell culture methods such as 3D cell culture have been developed in order to more closely mimic the in vivo system, but these still have some limitations including lack of in vivo relevance and low differentiation efficiency according to cell types. In this thesis, we control the interaction between the cells and the culture substrate based on a polymer thin film by using an initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD), and thereby construct a functional culture model of various cell types. By precisely controlling the adhesion ability of cells through the hydrophobic polymer, we developed a bone marrow-derived dendritic cell culture platform capable of promoting differentiation and growth. In addition, by controlling the surface properties of the culture substrate and corresponding properties of the adsorbed protein, we developed a cancer spheroid culture method that can mimic the interaction between cells and proteins existing in the tumor microenvironment, and applied it to construct a microfluidic-based metastasis model.