Polyelectrolyte multilayers have large potential for the engineering of surfaces for biomedical applications in scaffolds and implants. The manuscript describes the influence of chemical composition and the nature of both polycations and polyanions in the way multilayers affect cell adherence. Cell adherence is significantly enhanced by using a di-block assembly strategy with a bottom block of stiffer polyelectrolyte and a top block of softer biopolyelectrolyte, as compared with that of a multilayer of the same number of layers but formed only by the softer biopolyelectrolytes. The manuscript also shows a simple way to tune cell adherence by combining natural and synthetic polyelectrolytes.

Abstract