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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Functional Fibronectin Adsorption on Aptamer-Doped Chitosan Modulates Cell Morphology by Integrin-Mediated Pathway.

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A decisive step in cell-biomaterial interaction is represented by the adsorption of proteins at the interface, whose fine control may be useful to trigger proper cell response. To this purpose, we can selectively control protein adsorption on biomaterials by means of aptamers. Aptamers selected to recognize fibronectin dramatically enhance chitosan ability to promote cell proliferation and adhesion, but the underlying biological mechanism remains unknown. We supposed that aptamers contributed to ameliorate the adsorption of fibronectin in an advantageous geometrical conformation for cells, thus regulating their morphology by the proper activation of the integrin-mediated pathway. We investigated this possibility by culturing epithelial cells on chitosan enriched with increasing doses of aptamers in the presence or in the absence of cytoskeleton pharmacological inhibitors. Our results showed that aptamers control cell morphology in a dose dependent manner (p &lt