Preventing Protein Adsorption from a Range of Surfaces Using an Aqueous Fish Protein Extract

Polymers and biopolymers at interfaces

This review updates recent progress in the understanding of the behaviour of polymers at surfaces and interfaces, highlighting examples in the areas of wetting, dewetting, crystallization, and 'smart' materials. Recent developments in analysis tools have yielded a large increase in the study of biological systems, and some of these will also be discussed, focussing on areas where surfaces are important. These areas include molecular binding events and protein adsorption as well as the mapping of the surfaces of cells. Important techniques commonly used for the analysis of surfaces and interfaces are discussed separately to aid the understanding of their application.

Fibrinogen matrix deposited on the surface of biomaterials acts as a natural anti-adhesive coating

Adsorption of fibrinogen on the luminal surface of biomaterials is a critical early event during the interaction of blood with implanted vascular graft prostheses which determines their thrombogenicity. We have recently identified a nanoscale process by which fibrinogen modifies the adhesive properties of various surfaces for platelets and leukocytes. In particular, adsorption of fibrinogen at low density promotes cell adhesion while its adsorption at high density results in the formation of an extensible multilayer matrix, which dramatically reduces cell adhesion. It remains unknown whether deposition of fibrinogen on the surface of vascular graft materials produces this anti-adhesive effect. Using atomic force spectroscopy, single cell force spectroscopy, and standard adhesion assays with platelets and leukocytes, we have characterized the adhesive and physical properties of the contemporary biomaterials, before and after coating with fibrinogen. We found that uncoated PET, PTFE and ePTFE exhibited high adhesion forces developed between the AFM tip or cells and the surfaces. Adsorption of fibrinogen at the increasing concentrations progressively reduced adhesion forces, and at ≥2 μg/ml all surfaces were virtually nonadhesive. Standard adhesion assays performed with platelets and leukocytes confirmed this dependence. These results provide a better understanding of the molecular events underlying thrombogenicity of vascular grafts.

Measurements of long-range interactions between protein-functionalized surfaces by total internal reflection microscopy

Understanding the interaction between protein-functionalized surfaces is an important subject in a variety of protein-related processes, ranging from coatings for biomedical implants to targeted drug carriers and biosensors. In this work, utilizing a total internal reflection microscope (TIRM), we have directly measured the interactions between micron-sized particles decorated with three types of common proteins concanavalin A (ConA), bovine serum albumin (BSA), lysozyme (LYZ), and glass surface coated with soy proteins (SP). Our results show that the protein adsorption greatly affects the charge property of the surfaces, and the interactions between those protein-functionalized surfaces depend on solution pH values. At pH 7.5-10.0, all these three protein-functionalized particles are highly negatively charged, and they move freely above the negatively charged SP-functionalized surface. The net interaction between protein-functionalized surfaces captured by TIRM was found as a long-range, nonspecific double-layer repulsion. When pH was decreased to 5.0, both protein-functionalized surfaces became neutral and double-layer repulsion was greatly reduced, resulting in adhesion of all three protein-functionalized particles to the SP-functionalized surface due to the hydrophobic attraction. The situation is very different at pH = 4.0: BSA-decorated particles, which are highly charged, can move freely above the SP-functionalized surfaces, while ConA- and LYZ-decorated particles can only move restrictively in a limited range. Our results quantify these nonspecific kT-scale interactions between protein-functionalized surfaces, which will enable the design of surfaces for use in biomedical applications and study of biomolecular interactions.

Surface and adsorption characteristics of three elastin-like polypeptide coatings with varying sequence lengths

The surface properties of a family of elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs), differing in molecular weight and sequence length, were investigated to understand how the nature of the polypeptide film might contribute to their thrombogenic profile. Physical adsorption of the ELPs onto Mylar increased surface wettability as the sequence length decreased while X-ray spectroscopy analysis showed an increasing amide content with sequence length. Chemical force microscopy analysis revealed that the ELP-coated surfaces displayed purely hydrophilic adhesion forces that increased as the ELP sequence length decreased. Adsorption isotherms performed using the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation, showed that the surface coverage increased with ELP sequence length. The longer polypeptides (ELP2 and ELP4) also displayed higher specific dissipation values indicating that they established films with greater structural flexibility and associated water content than the shorter polypeptide, ELP1. Additionally, the stability of the ELP coating was lower with the shorter polypeptides. This study highlights the different surface properties of the ELP coatings as well as the dynamic nature of the ELP adsorbed layer wherein the conformational state may be an important factor contributing to their blood response.

Protein-protein resistance investigated by quartz crystal microbalance

By use of quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D), we have investigated the adsorption of proteins such as fibrinogen, bovine serum albumin or lysozyme on the surface of soy protein film in PBS buffer solution in real time. Our studies demonstrate that the proteins can be adsorbed on soy protein film at a pH between the isoelectric point (pI(sp)) of soy protein film and that (pI(fp)) of the foreign protein, where the adsorption decreases with the concentration of added salt. Beyond the pH range, soy protein generally resists the adsorption of the foreign protein due to electrostatic repulsion, which is slightly affected by the concentration of the added salt in the range we investigated. At a pH close to pI(sp) or pI(fp), the proteins can also be adsorbed on soy protein film due to hydrophobic interactions. The present study reveals that the protein resistance of soy protein film is determined by electrostatic interactions, hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonding between the foreign protein and soy protein.