In vitro Study of Initial Cell Attachment to the Surfaces Coated with Conjugates Consisting of Silk Fibroin and Chitooligosaccharides

Abstract

We prepared conjugates (COS-CY-SF) by the chemical modification of solubilized silk fibroin (SF) with polycationic chitooligosaccharides (COS) using cyanuric chloride (CY) as a coupling spacer, and examined initial attachment of fibroblast cells and hepatoma cells employed as a model for hepatocytes on the conjugate-coated surfaces. The attachment of fibroblast cells on the COS-CY-SF conjugate-coated surfaces was significantly lower than that on unmodified SF-coated surfaces. Fibroblast cells attached to the conjugate-coated surfaces showed only round-shaped morphology while fibroblast cells attached to SF-coated surfaces showed predominantly spread morphology. In the case of hepatoma cells, the attachment on the COS-CY-SF conjugate-coated surfaces was lower than that on SF-coated surfaces. Hepatoma cells attached to the conjugate-coated surfaces showed round shapes. These results indicated the inhibitory effect of polycationic COS moiety immobilized into SF on initial cell attachment. Based on the round and spread morphologies of the hepatoma cells on SF-coated surfaces, SF cannot be considered as a suitable substrate for hepatocyte attachment.