Cellular Traction Forces Measured With Microposts Made by Hot Embossing of Polystyrene

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has become a highly utilized tool to study the forces that cells generate, although, outside of lab on chip devices, it is not widely used and requires protein coatings to encourage cell adhesion¹. Furthermore, PDMS suffers from changes in composition and stiffness with different curing conditions². Alternatively, polystyrene is a common substrate that promotes cell adhesion and has mostly consistent properties; however, polystyrene is typically challenging to form without special equipment and expensive molds. Previously, a hot embossing method³ has been proposed to manufacture polystyrene devices using a PDMS negative mold and polystyrene chips. A moderate amount of pressure and temperatures above the glass transition temperature of polystyrene enable the polystyrene to flow into the mold. In this paper, we fabricate microposts out of polystyrene and successfully seed cells on top of the posts.