The study of specific and nonspecific hepatoma cells behavior by means of plasma-treated substrates

Physical‐chemical surface modifications represent a formidable tool to drive a suitable cell behavior on materials intended to be used in the biomedical field. Plasma processes are among the more powerful methods utilized to modify the surface of materials without altering their bulk intrinsic properties. In particular, by means of plasma treatment processes it is possible to graft chemical functional groups on polymer substrate. Functional groups grafted on the surface can improve per se cell adhesion and can also represent suitable anchor sites for biomolecule immobilization. The aim of this work was to determine the effect of plasma treatment and biomolecule immobilization on Polystyrene (PS) Petri dishes on the behavior of a human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line (HepG2). For this aim Petri dishes were grafted with N‐containing groups in order to obtain grafted N‐functionalities, to be used as anchor groups for the immobilization of galactosamine. In this way two different modified surfaces, NH3 grafted polystyrene (PS‐NH3) and polystyrene owing galactosamine moieties (PS‐NH3‐GalNH2), have been obtained. Differences in cell morphology, urea and plasma Fibronectin (pFN) production were clearly observed on HepG2 seeded on PS‐NH3 and PS‐NH3‐GalNH2. These results highlight the role of specific and non specific cell response in the in vitro study of materials intended to be used for biomedical purposes. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 2010.