title: Bottom-up engineering of the surface roughness of nanostructured cubic zirconia to control cell adhesion.
abstract: Nanostructured cubic zirconia is a strategic material for biomedical applications since it combines superior structural and optical properties with a nanoscale morphology able to control cell adhesion and proliferation. We produced nanostructured cubic zirconia thin films at room temperature by supersonic cluster beam deposition of nanoparticles produced in the gas phase. Precise control of film roughness at the nanoscale is obtained by operating in a ballistic deposition regime. This allows one to study the influence of nanoroughness on cell adhesion, while keeping the surface chemistry constant. We evaluated cell adhesion on nanostructured zirconia with an osteoblast-like cell line using confocal laser scanning microscopy for detailed morphological and cytoskeleton studies. We demonstrated that the organization of cytoskeleton and focal adhesion formation can be controlled by varying the evolution of surface nanoroughness.
authors.affiliation: European School of Molecular Medicine (SEMM), IFOM-IEO, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferri
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tamplenizza
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Borghi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Divitini
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ducati
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lenardi
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Piazzoni
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Merlini
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Podestà
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Milani
mesh_terms: D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000737:chemistry*; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D002470:Cell Survival; D006801:Humans; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D010006:Osteoblasts / Q000166:cytology*; D013499:Surface Properties; D015040:Zirconium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D015040:Zirconium; C028541:zirconium oxide