Investigation of Pulse electric field effect on HeLa cells alignment properties on extracellular matrix protein patterned surface

Cell behavior in terms of adhesion, orientation and guidance, on extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules including collagen, fibronectin and laminin can be examined using micro contact printing (MCP). These cell adhesion proteins can direct cellular adhesion, migration, differentiation and network formation in-vitro. This study investigates the effect of microcontact printed ECM protein, namely fibronectin, on alignment and morphology of HeLa cells cultured in-vitro. Fibronectin was stamped on plain glass cover slips to create patterns of
25µm, 50µm and 100µm width. However, HeLa cells seeded on 50µm induced the best alignment on fibronectin pattern (7.66° ±1.55SD). As a consequence of this, 50µm wide fibronectin pattern was used to see how fibronectin induced cell guidance of HeLa cells was influenced by 100µs and single pulse electric fields (PEF) of 1kV/cm. The results indicates that cells aligned more under pulse electric field exposure (2.33° ±1.52SD) on fibronectin pattern substrate. Thus, PEF usage on biological cells would appear to enhance cell surface attachment
and cell guidance. Understanding this further may have applications in enhancing tissue graft generation and potentially wound repair.