%0 Journal Article
%T The effect of high vacuum on the mechanical properties and bioactivity of collagen fibril matrices
%A Christopher R Anderton
%A Frank W DelRio
%A Kiran Bhadriraju
%A Anne L Plant
%J Biointerphases
%D 2013
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1559-4106-8-2
%X Cellular interactions with the extracellular matrix (ECM) initiate an array of biophysical and biochemical signals that drive biological processes ranging from embryonic development to cancer progression [1-4]. In addition to receptor-mediated interactions between cells and the ECM [5,6], the mechanical environment that cells experience can exert strong influences on inter- and intracellular signaling and cell responses, and is likely critical to migration, differentiation, and development [4,7-10]. Elucidating the structural, mechanical, and chemical environment that the ECM presents to cells can be challenging. There has been a growing effort to employ a variety of surface sensitive microscopy techniques to measure the physicochemical properties of ECMs [11-16].Recently, a number of reports have analyzed decellularized tissues and ECMs created by cells in vitro using electron, ion, and x-ray bombardment induced ionization microscopy methods, which are performed under high vacuum (HV) [13-15,17-22]. The use of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), for example, is commonplace for obtaining structural information of supramolecular ECM systems [13,17,18,20], but methods for accessing information about the chemical environment that the ECM provides to cells has been more elusive. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) is one such technique that can provide chemical information about the surface of the material being analyzed. The ToF-SIMS sampling depth, when operated in a so-called static mode, is approximately 1 nm to 2 nm, rendering it ideal for determining the surface composition of complex protein samples [14,23-26]. ToF-SIMS data are conducive to a variety of multivariate analysis techniques, such as principal component analysis (PCA), to provide sensitive discrimination between parent molecules based on spectral differences [24,25]. For example, PCA with ToF-SIMS has been utilized for identifying and classifying a variety of biologically relevan
%K Collagen fibrils
%K Extracellular matrix
%K Quantitative cell imaging
%K Colloidal probe atomic force microscopy
%K Secondary ion mass spectrometry
%K Principal component analysis
%U http://www.biointerphases.com/content/8/1/2