Traversing Behavior of Nasopharyngeal Epithelial and Carcinoma Cells on Two-Layer Scaffold Platforms

In this work, two-layer scaffold platforms with different overlay angles and top layer thicknesses were designed to separate nasopharyngeal epithelial (NP460) cells from carcinoma (NPC43) cells. The scaffold platforms were used to mimic the extracellular matrix. The overlay angle between the top and bottom layers was varied from 30° to 90° and the top layer thickness was tuned from 5 to 30 μm. These designs provided different surface contact areas for cells to sense and attach when they migrated from the top layer to the bottom layer. The highest traversing probability was over 71% when the top layer was perpendicular to the bottom layer for NPC43 cells, but only 16% for NP460 cells. These platforms can be used for screening nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells in NPC tumor without expensive and complex procedures.