Fabrication of porous films from immiscible polymer blends: Role of the surface structure on the cell adhesion

We report the preparation of microporous surfaces prepared from immiscible polymer blends using the Breath Figures methodology. The selected polymer blend is formed by two biodegradable polymers i.e. poly(e-caprolactone) and poly(lactic acid) both known to be biocompatible and presenting two distinct kinetics of biodegradation. These two polymers form immiscible polymer blends upon solvent casting in low relative humidity conditions. However, when quenching the melt using fast cooling processes or by evaporation in a moist atmosphere, micrometer size phase-separated domains have been clearly identified by Raman Confocal. This allowed us to analyze cell adhesion as well as proliferation on both planar (those obtained from melt quenching) and microporous surfaces (those obtained by the breath figures approach) formed from different blend compositions. Using C166-GFP and RAW264.7 cell types as a model we could observe an improved adhesion of the C166-GFP on top of the microporous surfaces evidencing the role of the surface topography on the cell adhesion process. In addition, preliminary results on the RAW264.7 cell adhesion indicated the polarization to M2 phenotypes instead of M1 which is a pre-requisite for the potential use of this material for implantology purposes.