Surface Modifications with Adsorbed Poly(ethylene oxide)-Based Block Coploymers

摘要

Pluronic surfactants with varying PEO block lengths are found to adsorb to polystyrene nanoparticles. Stable adsorption complexes can be formed with similar packing densities, allowing an evaluation of chain length on the physical and biological proerties of thecoating. The ad-layer thickness at maximum surface coverage increases monotonically with increasing chain length, and the chain dynamics parallels this increase. Various complexes have been examined for their ability to repel fibrinogen, a capability that likewise increases with increasing chain length up to 129 EO units (F108), in analogy with previous observations on covalently modified surfaces. At maximum repulsion efficiency, the fibrinogen uptake is two orders of magnitude below that of the bare surface. By end-group activating the PEO chains, proteins and otehr ligands can be tethered to the surface, where they remain structurally intact. Surfaces modified in this manner have shown to support the growth of anchor dependent cells.