Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 31: Posters - Biotechnology and Bioengineering

BP 31.3: Poster

Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 14:00–16:00, P2-OG1

Neutron Reflectometry Reveals Structural Aspects of Blood Protein Adsorption to Polymer Brushes — •Victoria Latza¹, Ignacio Rodriguez Loureiro¹, Irena Kiesel², Avraham Halperin³, Giovanna Fragneto², and Emanuel Schneck¹ — ¹Max-Planck-Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung, Potsdam, Deutschland — ²Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, Frankreich — ³Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, Frankreich

Protein adsorption to biomedical surfaces, for example of implants, is a major issue because it can lead to harmful foreign body reactions. Surface functionalization with hydrophilic polymer brushes is a common strategy to suppress undesired protein adsorption. However, numerous cases where this approach failed are reported and further investigation of the molecular mechanisms is required. Here, we use neutron reflectometry (NR) to characterize the adsorption of blood proteins to poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) brushes grafted to planar phospholipid surfaces. The unique structural insights provided by NR allows distinguishing between different adsorption modes. For whole human blood serum the reflectivity curves show significant primary adsorption into the lipid head group region and suggest the presence of a low amount of ternary adsorption at the brush periphery. In context with the commonly neglected antigenicity of PEG we systematically characterize the structural aspects of antibody binding to polymer brushes with various chain lengths and grafting densities. To this end we obtained qualitatively different results for antibodies specific to the PEG end points and to the backbone.