Tapered microtract array platform for antimigratory drug screening of human glioblastoma multiforme.

Understanding the effects of topographic characteristics on tumor cell migration is important for the development of new anti-migratory therapies. However, simplified in vitro culture systems often lead to inaccurate results regarding the efficacy of drugs. Histopathologically, glioblastoma multiform (GBM) cells migrate along the orientation of thin, elongated anatomical structures, such as white-matter tracts. Here, a tapered microtract array platform which mimics the anatomical features of brain tissue is introduced. This platform enables optimization of design for platform fabrication depending on topographic effects. By monitoring the migration of GBM cells on a simple tapered microtract, a saltatory migration resembling the migratory phenotype of human GBM cells in vivo is observed. The platform effectively induces the native characteristics and behavior of cells by topographic cues, allowing to observe the critical point for crawling to saltatory transition. Furthermore, this platform can be applied to efficiently screen anti-cancer drug by inhibiting associated signaling pathways on GBM cells. In conclusion, the microtract array platform reported here may provide a better understanding of the effects of topographic characteristics on cell migration, and may also be useful to determine the efficacy of antimigratory drugs for glioblastoma cells with cellular and molecular research and high-throughput screening.

Wrinkle-directed self-assembly of block copolymers for aligning of nanowire arrays.

Highly aligned metal nanowire arrays with feature sizes approaching 10 nm are fabricated. This is made possible by the self-assembly of block copolymers (BCPs) on graphene-wrinkle arrays. Thickness-modulated BCP films confined on the wrinkled reduced graphene oxide (rGO) surface promote the strict alignment of the self-assembled BCP lamellae in the direction of the film thickness gradient.