title: Schwann Cells Migration on Patterned Polydimethylsiloxane Microgrooved Surface.
abstract: Schwann cells (SCs) aid in nerve repair in the peripheral nervous system, and their ability to migrate into the injury site is critical for nerve regeneration after injury. The majority of studies on SC behavior have focused on SC alignment through contact guidance, rather than migration. The few studies on SC migration primarily investigated the migration of individual cells over several hours with time-lapse microscopy. However, during neural tissue repair, SCs do not migrate as single cells but as a population of cells over physiologically relevant time and length scales. Thus from a practical perspective, there is a need to understand the migration of large populations of SC and the collective guidance cues from the surrounding environment in designing optimal transplantable scaffolds. This study investigates a large population of migrating SCs over a period of 2 weeks on patterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microgrooved channels of different sizes. Two methods were used to quantify the migration velocity of a large cell population that minimized the confounding effect due to cell proliferation: one based on a leading edge velocity and a second based on a binary velocity. Both approaches showed that the SC population migrated the fastest on the smallest sized microgrooved channels. The insights provided in this study could inform on future designs of transplantable scaffolds for peripheral nerve regeneration.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.
authors.forename: Chun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.
authors.forename: Jeremy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kray
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Toomajian
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.|2 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University , East Lansing, Michigan.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes / Q000737:chemistry*; D051379:Mice; D012583:Schwann Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes