Grafting of lactose-carrying styrene onto polystrene dishes using plasma glow discharge and their interaction with hepatocytes.

Lactose-carrying styrene (VLA)-grafted polystyrene (PS) dish (PS-VLA) was prepared by treatment of PS dish with oxygen plasma glow discharge followed by the graft polymerization of VLA. The surface topology and hepatocytes behavior on PS-VLA were examined by comparison with those on a PVLA-coated PS dish (PS-PVLA). According to the results of surface topologies obtained by a phase mode of atomic force microscope (AFM), it was found that PS-VLA exhibits a pointed texture image similar to forest while PS-PVLA exhibits a phase-separated, cloud-like image. In an experiment involving hepatocytes adhesion, the cells more slowly adhered to PS-VLA than to PS-PVLA during the first 2 h incubation. According to topological data, it may be suggested that lactose density on the air side surface of PS-VLA is lower than that of PS-PVLA, thus leading to the slow adhesion of hepatocytes to PS-VLA.