Impact of the surface modifications and cell culture techniques on the biomechanical properties of PDMS in relation to cell growth behavior

Abstract

PDMS is the most widely used material in the microfluidic systems because of its advantageous properties including ease of manufacture, low cost, transparency, and gas permeability. Although all biomaterials need to be sterilized for usage for in vitro or in vivo systems to avoid possible contaminants, none of them proved effective in providing the gold standards so far for PDMS sterilization. Therefore we evaluated the influence of both UV and ethanol sterilization of PDMS substrates on the cell behavior via investigating cell proliferation, oxidative stress and nutrient metabolism of 293 T cells growing on the PDMS first time in the literature. Modulus of elasticity and stress relaxation of UV-treated PDMS samples increased compared to the ethanol-treated ones leading to a state of surface stiffness preferable for cell growth and proliferation. Oxidative stress metabolism of cells growing on the UV-treated PDMS was more stable compared to the ethanol-treated samples. Trace element and mineral metabolism are not impaired in the cells growing on the UV-treated PDMS samples. First time in the literature, we showed that UV treatment is more suitable for the PDMS samples used in the cell culture experiments.