Development of neurons on micropatterns reveals that growth cone responds to a sharp change of concentration of laminin

In this report we fabricated laminin (LN) stripes on a background of poly-L-lysine as substrates for the growth of rat hippocampal neurons, and found that a sharp change of the concentration of LN guides the growth of neurites by leading the growth cones in a time- and space-dependent manner. The percentage of neurites that grow along the edge of LN stripes (where there is a sharp change of concentration) decreases as a function of the concentration of LN under a threshold value. The actin cytoskeleton plays an important role in the process of growth cone's response to the sharp change of concentration of LN on micropatterns. We believe that the findings here are useful for not only fundamental studies in neuroscience, but also helpful for the design of devices or chips for nervous prosthesis.