FIG. 2.

Engineering highly aligned LSMC sheets. (A) 16 × optical image of the PDMS mold fixed onto a 35 mm culture plate, with the wavy patterns seen as dark lines. (B) The wavy plate was functionalized with laminin, and silk sutures were pinned down 12 mm apart. The growth medium was added to the plate and left to sterilize under UV light before cells were plated onto them. (C) 10 × inverted microscope images show that cells were unaligned 1.5 h after plating them, and show almost complete alignment on day 3. Highly aligned cell sheet formation can be seen on day 5. (D) Addition of the fibrin gel on day 5 promoted delamination (indicated by the black arrow), and the aligned cells contracted to form a highly longitudinally aligned construct 7 days after initial cell seeding, attached to the silk sutures.