Fluorescence Spectroscopic Studies on Plasma-Chemically Modified Polymer Surfaces with Fluorophore-Labeled Functionalities

En route to traceable reference standards for surface group quantifications by XPS, NMR and fluorescence spectroscopy

A strategy is outlined, which will provide reference materials for surface functional group quantifications by XPS, NMR and fluorescence.

Fluorinated Boron-Dipyrromethene (BODIPY) Dyes: Bright and Versatile Probes for Surface Analysis

A family of bright boron-dipyrromethene-type fluorophores with a high number of fluorine atoms (F-BODIPYs) has been developed and characterized by X-ray crystallography and optical spectroscopy. The introduction of 3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl and pentafluorophenyl moieties significantly enhances the photostability of such dyes, yielding for instance photostable near-infrared (NIR) fluorophores that show emission maxima>750 nm, when the BODIPY's π system is extended with two (dimethylamino)styryl and (dimethylamino)naphthastyryl moieties, or green-emitting BODIPYs with fluorescence quantum yields of unity. When equipped with a suitable group that selectively reacts for instance with amines, F-BODIPYs can be used as potent dual labels for the quantification of primary amino groups on surfaces by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and fluorescence, two powerful yet complementary tools for the analysis of organic surface functional groups. The advantage of reactive F-BODIPYs is that they allow a fast and non-destructive mapping of the labelled supports with conventional fluorescence scanners and a subsequent quantification of selected areas of the same sample by the potentially traceable XPS technique. The performance is exemplarily shown here for the assessment of the amino group density on SiO2 supports, one of the most common reactive silica supports, in particular, for standard microarray applications.

The influence of plasma technology coupled to chemical grafting on the cell growth compliance of 3D hydroxyapatite scaffolds

The development of advanced materials with biomimetic features in order to elicit desired biological responses and to guarantee tissue biocompatibility is recently gaining attention for tissue engineering applications. Bioceramics, such as hydroxyapatite-based biomaterials are now used in a number of different applications throughout the body, covering all areas of the skeleton, due to their biological and chemical similarity to the inorganic phases of bones. When bioactive sintered hydroxyapatite (HA) is desired, biomolecular modification of these materials is needed. In the present work, we investigated the influence of plasma surface modification coupled to chemical grafting on the cell growth compliance of HA 3D scaffolds.

Monitoring of amino functionalities on plasma-chemically modified polypropylene supports with a chromogenic and fluorogenic pyrylium reporter

A straightforward strategy toward the sensitive fluorometric detection of primary amino groups on plasma-chemically modified polypropylene supports is presented, exploiting the transformation of the sterically nonhindered pyrylium dye Py-1 into its pyridinium counterpart. The reaction-induced blue-shifted absorption and emission bands and an increased fluorescence quantum yield provide the basis for the spectroscopic distinction between covalently bound and free, that is, nonspecifically adsorbed label molecules. With this label, for the first time, plasma-chemically introduced amino functionalities could be monitored on the surface of a polymer film employing fluorescence spectroscopy and confocal laser scanning microscopy.