Remotely activated, vibrational magnetoelastic array system for controlling cell adhesion

Abstract

Anew system was designed to selectively control cellular adhesion to medicalimplants. The system is based on magnetoelastic (ME) materials that can beremotely set to generate mechanical vibrations at submicron levels withpredetermined amplitude and frequency. Previous studies have demonstrated thecapacity of these vibrations to control cellular adhesion at a substratesurface. In this work, an ME film with two conjoined strips was developed toinvestigate the potential of this system to provide region specific controlof cellular adhesion. In vitro cell culture experiments performed with L929fibroblasts indicate that cellular adhesion can be increased or decreased atdifferent regions of the film by changing the frequency of the magneticfield.