The adhesion and spreading behavior, and viability of the brain tumor and fibroblast cells were analyzed on the austenitic 316L stainless steel samples, which were deformed to different strains, promoting varying degrees of plastic deformation activities. Surface characterization and microscopy analyses showed that increasing plastic deformation significantly altered surface topography by the formation of surface extrusions and grooves, which increased the surface roughness. In addition, twinning and slip mechanisms created regions with high surface energy which catalyzed the adhesion of ECM proteins and formation of focal contacts. Specifically, tumor cells exhibited a greater viability and adhesion behavior on the samples deformed to the largest plastic strains concomitant with the filopodial extensions, which showed the higher affinity of these cells on the deformed samples. Conversely, fibroblast cells did not exhibit enhanced cell response on the deformed samples, which can stem from the surface roughness, size of the cells or the failure of the adhesion of ECM molecules expressed by the fibroblast cells. The current results show that surface and microstructural properties of the implants can be tailored by the activation of plastic deformation mechanisms to obtain ideal materials specific to body location and treatment.