Cell migration plays a critical role during several biological phenomena. Such a process is highly influenced by the environment and more specifically by its mechanical and topological characteristics. For instance, when a prosthesis or a scaffold is implanted in the bone, the roughness of their surface may affect the overall osseointegration since both adhesion and proliferation are improved and the surface roughness recommended is between 1 and 2 μm. Additive manufacturing seems to be a promising process for implant manufacturing, with however surface conditions far from the recommended values.

The study proposes a discrete numerical approach to investigate the influence of the surface topology on cell motility on surface obtained by additive manufacturing SLM and treated. More specifically, a Cellular Potts Model (CPM) is used, which is a lattice-based stochastic method where cell dynamics is obtained through an iterative and stochastic reduction of the overall energy. The simulations are made using the open-source GGH-based CompuCell3D. Besides, local and global roughness parameters were defined to characterize the surface.

The first numerical results point out that the cell/surface contact area plays a significant role and that the roughness increases this contact area. This increase in contact surface showed an improvement of the cell migration when compared to a plane surface, or an inhibition in the case of the SLM surface. Besides, the comparison between the surfaces highlights the importance of a good surface homogeneity to have the same migration properties in all the direction. Overall, treated surfaces exhibit a better cell migration compared to the SLM one.