Abstract

Following central nervous system (CNS) injury, activated astrocytes form glial scars, which inhibit axonal regeneration, leading to long-term functional deficits. Engineered nanoscale scaffolds guide cell growth and enhance regeneration within models of spinal cord injury. However, the effects of micro-/nano size scaffolds on astrocyte function are not well characterized. In this study, a high throughput (HTP) microscale platform was developed to study astrocyte cell behavior on micropatterned surfaces containing 11/4m spacing grooves with a depth of 250 or 500â €...nm. Significant changes in cell and nuclear elongation and alignment on patterned surfaces were observed, compared to on flat surfaces. The cytoskeleton components (particularly actin filaments and focal adhesions) and nucleus-centrosome axis were aligned along the grooved direction as well. More interestingly, astrocytes on micropatterned surfaces showed enhanced mitochondrial activity with lysosomes localized at the lamellipodia of the cells, accompanied by enhanced adenosine triphosphate (ATP) release and calcium activities. These data indicate that the lysosome-mediated ATP exocytosis and calcium signaling may play an important role in astrocytic responses to substrate topology. These new findings have furthered our understanding of the biomechanical regulation of astrocyte cell-substrate interactions and may benefit the optimization of scaffold design for CNS healing.

Department(s)

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Publication Status

Open Access

Comments

National Science Foundation, Grant None

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

2045-2322

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2025 The Authors, All rights reserved.

Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2015

PubMed ID

25597401

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