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Abstract

The crosstalk between different receptor types at the interface with the extracellular
environment is crucial for cell adhesion, migration and differentiation. Nanopatterned
surfaces which combine adhesive ligands and growth factors allow to study how local
changes in the extracellular environment regulate cell responses through specific
receptor-ligand interactions.
For adhesion to the extracellular matrix, integrin lateral clustering strongly influences
cell adhesion dynamics and forces [1]. The nanoscale presentation of integrin ligands
combined with growth factors, namely BMP-2 and BMP-6, modulates not only the
specific interaction with different integrin types [3], but also the osteogenic
differentiation of cells [4, 5]. Such nanopatterning approaches can be also applied to hydrogels of varying stiffness to elucidate the interdependency of mechanotransduction and differentiation signaling [6].