Mammalian cell viability on hydrophobic and superhydrophobic fabrics

Surface properties like hydrophobicity and morphology of the substrate are essential for cell proliferation affecting its growth, survival and also for its communication with other cells on fabrics. The combination of low surface energy and a specific surface morphology (micro/nano-roughness) leads to significantly less wettable surfaces, known as superhydrophobic characterized by high contact angle above 150 degrees and a very small hysteresis. Such high water repellent coatings feature small area available to be exploited in many applications where interactions with aqueous environment are strongly to be avoided. In this work, the authors have investigated the influence of coating polyester fabric at different degree of hydrophobicity by mixed organic inorganic coating with moderated to highly water repellence. Depending on the coating composition and structure, the hydrophobicity of the fabric can be finely modulated by an easy-to-prepare method applicable to commercial, low cost fabric substrates providing advanced performance. In vitro experiments have been performed in order to establish the influence of surface modification on adhesion of representative model mammalian cell lines such as 3T3 fibroblasts, HaCaT keratinocytes and HeLa epithelial carcinoma cells. The obtained results suggested that, in addition to the chemistry and morphology of the coating, the characteristics of the substrate are important parameters on the final cell viabilities.