In August 2014, Dr. Chen Zhong Research Group published their recent work on the morphology and function of astrocytes cultured on water-repellent fractal tripalmitin surface. This work also obtained China Invention Patent.

In the CNS, astrocytes play an essential role with their multiple functions and sophisticated structure, as surrounded by a fractal environment which hasn't been available in our traditional cell culture. They investigated whether a water-repellent fractal nanomaterial surface made by tripalmitin (PPP), could provide the cultured primary astrocytes with an improved closer-to-natural environment for experimental assessment of glial structure and functions.

They found that water-repellent fractal PPP surface can induce astrocytes to display differentiated morphology with smaller size of cell area, longer and finer filopodium-like processes, and higher morphological complexity revealed by fractal analysis. The super water-repellent fractal PPP surface produced the maximal effects compared with other surfaces at lower water contact angle. The trends of characteristic protein expression for astrocytes cultured in super water-repellent fractal PPP surface approximated more toin vivo pattern compared with those in conventional cell culture surface. This super water-repellent PPP surface also rendered astrocytes to perform more pronounced promotion of neurogenesis by increasing the release of nerve growth factor in a co-culture system.

These results suggest that super water-repellency fractal PPP surface facilitates the astrocytes to mimic their in vivo performance in respect of differentiated morphology and biochemical characterization as well as increased functions in promoting neurogenesis. Thus this surface is particularly suitable for two-dimensional cell culture to provide biomaterial properties closely mimicking that in vivo.

Wei-wei Hu, Zhe Wang, Shan-shan Zhang, Lei Jiang, Jing Zhang, Xiangnan Zhang, Qun-fang Lei, Hyun-Joo Park, Wen-jun Fang, Zhong Chen.Morphology and functions of astrocytes cultured on water-repellent fractal tripalmitin surfaces. Biomaterials. 2014 Aug;35(26):7386-97.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961214005833)