Clustered integrin α5β1 ligand displays model fibronectin-mediated adhesion of human endometrial stromal cells

► A new substrate architecture for synthetic mimics of the cell extracellular matrix is presented. ► The substrates involve the synthesis of oriented, multimeric integrin α5β1 ligand displays, which closely mimic the key attributes of fibronectin fibrils. ► These displays strongly promote attachment and spreading of cells which engage the fibronectin extracellular matrix through the integrin α5β1 subtype. ► Application of our synthetic displays is demonstrated for primary human endometrial stromal cells and promises new substrates for the engineering of endometrial tissue in vitro.