Characterization of rat meningeal cultures on materials of differing surface chemistry

To better understand the interactions of cells derived from meningeal tissu es with the surfaces of devices used for the treatment of central nervous s ystem disorders, the behavior of primary postnatal day 1 rat meningeal cult ures was evaluated on biomaterials of differing surface chemistry. Meningea l cultures in serum containing media were analyzed for attachment, spread c ell area, proliferation, the production of extracellular matrix (ECM), and neuronal outgrowth. In general, both cell attachment as well as cell spread area decreased with increasing substrate hydrophobicity, whereas cell divi sion as indicated by BrdU incorporation and time to confluence, was lower o n the most hydrophobic materials. We suggest that such differences immediat ely after cell seeding were most likely mediated by differences in surface adsorption of proteins. In longer-term experiments, most of the materials w ere colonized by meningeal cultures irrespective of surface chemistry, and all cultures were equally inhibitory to neuronal outgrowth suggesting that over time, cells can modify the substrate perhaps by secretion of extracell ular matrix molecule proteins. Our data suggests that cell type-specific di fferences in response to different biomaterials may play an important role in determining the Ultimate nature and composition of the CNS at the host-b iomaterial interface. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.