Thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-based block copolymer coating for optimizing cell sheet fabrication.

Thermoresponsive surfaces are prepared via a spin-coating method with a block copolymer consisting of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PIPAAm) and poly(butyl methacrylate) (PBMA) on polystyrene surfaces. The PBMA block suppresses the removal of deposited PIPAAm-based polymers from the surface. The polymer coating affects the temperature-dependent cellular behavior of the surfaces with respect to protein adsorption. By adjusting layer thicknesses, PBMA-b-PIPAAm-coated surfaces are optimized to regulate the adhesion/detachment of cells by temperature changes. Thus, thermoresponsive polymer-coated surfaces are able to harvest contiguous cell sheets with their basal extracellular matrix proteins.