ABSTRACT
In t issue eng ineering, s ca olds a re o en u sed to supp ort t he c ell at tachment a nd g rowth, t hereby repairing and regenerating the diseased tissue or body organ. With the development of modern nanotechnology, sca olds possessing nanometer-scaled features are attracting increased attention for their application in tissue engineering. It is well known now that cells naturally live within the extracellullar matrix (ECM) complex which has complicated nanometer-scaled three-dimensional structures, including pores, ridges, and bers (Dufrene, 2001; Flemming et al., 1999). is nanometer-scaled ECM structure interacts with cells and give cells guidance for a n umber of cell and t issue functions such as cell migration (Wolf et al., 2003) and organelle formation (Dent and Gertler, 2003). It has also been shown that synthetically nanofabricated topography can also in uence cell adhesion, pro liferation, morphology, alignment, cytoskeleton organization, and migration (Kriparamanan et al., 2006). In addition, the substrate surface properties, including surface energy, chemical compositions, and mechanical properties, also have in uences on the tissue-material interactions and determine the fate of medical devices. In the following sections of this chapter, we will discuss the techniques of creating nanotopography using nanoparticles as a surface-modi cation technique for tissue engineered sca olds and the e ects of this nanotopography to cells and tissues.
