Capture of cervical exfoliative cells on a glass slide coated by 3-glycidyloxypropyl trimethoxysilane and poly-L-lysine

A new modification method for glass slides was developed and applied to make ThinPrep Pap smears, in order to increase the adhesion ability of cervical exfoliative cells. 3-glycidyloxypropyl trimethoxysilane (GOPS) was coated on the glass slides firstly on the slides, then poly-L-lysine (PLL) was covalently modified onto the above epoxy-terminated slides to form GOPS-PLL double decorated slides. The modified slides were characterized using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The cell adhesion ability effect was tested and compared with traditional PLL coated slides by fixing the cervical exfoliative cells on the double adorned slides. The control test was conducted by the bare glass slides unmodified. The cell morphology of cervical exfoliative cells adhered on different slides was observed under the microscope after Papanicolaou staining. The number of cervical exfoliative cells on the unmodified slides, PLL coated slides and GOPS-PLL coated slides was 1030±300, 3283±226 and 4119±280 (n=12), respectively. The data among the three different modification methods showed significant differences (one-way analysis of variance, ANOVA test, P<0.05). The cell capturing effect of the GOPS-PLL slide was the best among the three different modified slides. In addition, the GOPS-PLL slide could enhance the uniformity of the adhered cells and be widely applied to the ThinPrep system for cervical carcinoma screening to increase the accuracy rate of diagnosis.