Sugar-fiber Imprinting to Generate Microgrooves on Polymeric Film Surfaces for Contact Guidance of Cells

Anisotropic surface topography is known to induce the contact guidance of cells, and facile and biocompatible approaches of the physical modification of the pertinent matrix surfaces are thus meaningful for biomaterials. Herein, we put forward a sugar-fiber imprinting technique to generate microgrooves on hydrophobic polymers demonstrated by the poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) films. Microgrooves were conveniently generated after removing sugar fibers simply by water. The resulting locally anisotropic microgrooves were confirmed to elongate the cells cultured on the surface.