A Commentary on “Thermo-responsive polymeric surfaces; control of attachment and detachment of cultured cells” by N. Yamada, T. Okano, H. Sakai, F. Karikusa, Y. Sawasaki, Y. Sakurai (Makromol. Chem., Rapid Commun. 1990, 11, 571–576)
✍ Scribed by Dietmar W. Hutmacher
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2005
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 816 KB
- Volume
- 26
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1022-1336
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Okano's group which made a big impact in the biomaterials and tissue engineering community. In 1990 the group at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in Tokyo Women's Medical School published their paper ''Thermo-responsive polymeric surfaces; control of attachment and detachment of cultured cells''. [1] The paper describes a novel methodology to harvest and expand cells. When the temperature responsive polymer, namely poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PIPAAm), is fixed to the cell culturing plastic plate utilizing the so called ''bionano-interface technology'', the surface of the plate changes reversible hydrophilic-hydrophobic in response to temperature change across lowest critical solution temperature (LCST) of 32 8C. The surface becomes hydrophobic over 32 8C which enables cells to attach to the surface and grow.
Macromolecular Rapid Communications decided to reprint at the 25 th anniversary of the journal a representative set of papers which made an impact over the past 25 years. How do we measure impact? Analysis via the Web of Science shows that the article was cited 119 times. Searching the web portals Medline and Science Direct reveals that a significant number of papers on PIPAAm have been published since 1990 (Figure 1). A steep increase in publication can be observed over the last five years, many of those papers coming out of the group at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in Tokyo Women's Medical School. The top five citations of more recent papers from Okano's group and their numerous international collaborators are in the range of 40 to 60 citations.
Recent decades have witnessed the appearance of synthetic functional polymers that respond in some desired way to a change in temperature, pH, electric or magnetic field, or some other parameter. These polymers were originally called 'stimulus responsive' but the name 'smart' polymers was coined based on their similarity to biopolymers. The two thermally responsive polymers that are studied most are poly[(N-isopropylacrylamide)-co-acrylamide] and poly-(NIPAAm). Looking into the history, credit has to be given to the group which published the first paper on PIPAAm (M.