The effect of plastic deformation on the cell viability and adhesion behavior in metallic implant materials

Abstract

This chapter examines the relation between the plastic deformation and cell response on the austenitic 316L stainless steel samples, which were deformed by tensile loading up to 5 different strains: 5, 15, 25, 35 and 60% in an experiment. The specimens were ground with 400, 800, 1200 and 2500 grit SiC papers, and polished with the diamond abrasives with varied particle sizes. After completing the surface analyses, the steel samples were sterilized with an autoclave and each sample was placed into one well in a 24-well tissue culture plate (Costar). Then brain tumor and fibroblast cells were seeded on each well containing 1 ml growth medium and were incubated. The microscopy investigations of the implant surface in parallel with the cell response showed that the plastic deformation induced micro-deformation mechanisms improved the cell viability, attachment and spreading of the brain tumor cells, particularly by distorting the surface topography and enhancing the surface roughness. Surface characterization and microscopy analyses showed that increasing plastic deformation significantly altered surface topography by the formation of surface extrusions and grooves, which increased the surface roughness.