Model substrates for studies of cell mobility

Cells do not live in static surroundings, they exist in highly evolving dynamic environments. During cell adhesion and migration, cells adapt and communicate to their environment by numerous methods ranging from differentiation, gene expression, growth, and apoptosis. How and when cells determine to adhere, polarize, and migrate is important to a number of fundamental biological processes such as wound healing, metastasis, inflammation, and development. In order to elucidate the spatial and temporal mechanisms of these important complex processes on a molecular basis, several research groups have generated model substrates that can present nanopatterned ligands, well-defined gradients of ligands and surfaces that can be dynamically modulated where the interaction between cell and material is defined at the molecular level.