In-situ guidance of individual neuronal processes by wet femtosecond-laser processing of self-assembled monolayers

Hideaki Yamamoto; Kazunori Okano; Takanori Demura; Yoichiroh Hosokawa; Hiroshi Masuhara; Takashi Tanii; Shun Nakamura

doi:10.1063/1.3651291

In-situ guidance of individual neuronal processes by wet femtosecond-laser processing of self-assembled monolayers

Appl Phys Lett. 2011 Oct 17;99(16):163701. doi: 10.1063/1.3651291.

Authors

Hideaki Yamamoto, Kazunori Okano, Takanori Demura¹, Yoichiroh Hosokawa², Hiroshi Masuhara², Takashi Tanii, Shun Nakamura³

Affiliations

¹ School of Fundamental Science and Engineering, Waseda University , 3-4-1 Ohkubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan.
² Graduate School of Materials Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, 8916-5 Takayama-cho, Ikoma-shi, Nara 630-0192, Japan.
³ Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology , 2-24-16 Naka-cho, Koganei-shi, Tokyo 184-8588, Japan.

Abstract

In-situ guidance of neuronal processes (neurites) is demonstrated by applying wet femtosecond-laser processing to an organosilane self-assembled monolayer (SAM) template. By scanning focused laser beam between cell adhesion sites, on which primary neurons adhered and extended their neurites, we succeeded in guiding the neurites along the laser-scanning line. This guidance was accomplished by multiphoton laser ablation of cytophobic SAM layer and subsequent adsorption of cell adhesion molecule, laminin, onto the ablated region. This technique allows us to arbitrarily design neuronal networks in vitro.