Enhanced Protein Immobilization on Polymers—A Plasma Surface Activation Study

Abstract

Over the last years, polymers have gained great attention as substrate material, because of the possibility to produce low-cost sensors in a high-throughput manner or for rapid prototyping and the wide variety of polymeric materials available with different features (like transparency, flexibility, stretchability, etc.). For almost all biosensing applications, the interaction between biomolecules (for example, antibodies, proteins or enzymes) and the employed substrate surface is highly important. In order to realize an effective biomolecule immobilization on polymers, different surface activation techniques, including chemical and physical methods, exist. Among them, plasma treatment offers an easy, fast and effective activation of the surfaces by micro/nanotexturing and generating functional groups (including carboxylic acids, amines, esters, aldehydes or hydroxyl groups). Hence, here we present a systematic and comprehensive plasma activation study of various polymeric surfaces by optimizing different parameters, including power, time, substrate temperature and gas composition. Thereby, the highest immobilization efficiency along with a homogenous biomolecule distribution is achieved with a 5-min plasma treatment under a gas composition of 50% oxygen and nitrogen, at a power of 1000 W and a substrate temperature of 80 • C. These results are also confirmed by different surface characterization methods, including SEM, XPS and contact angle measurements.

Improved Osteogenesis of Selective-Laser-Melted Titanium Alloy by Coating Strontium-Doped Phosphate With High-Efficiency Air-Plasma Treatment

“…This evidence demonstrates that air-plasma treatment can significantly improve the biocompatibility of inorganic implants and may be conducive for osteogenesis. After air-plasma treatment, hydroxyl radicals are added to the treated surface (Tsougeni et al, 2015;Kurzyp et al, 2017;Sathish et al, 2019;Wieland et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020), further reducing water contact angle shown in Figure 4, which forms an adsorption effect with adhesion proteins and enhances biocompatibility. Hydrophilicity is critical for the bioactivity of bone tissue implants and can improve cell adhesion and proliferation.…”

Development of a Diagnostic Biosensor Method of Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis towards a Point-of-Care Biosensor

“…HP is an immune-mediated interstitial lung disease occurring in susceptible individuals [1][2][3]. Importantly, in a number of cases, HP can lead to pulmonary fibrosis, which is associated Biosensors 2021, 11,196 2 of 16 with progressive respiratory insufficiency and death. Exposure may occur indoors, at work, at home, or even outdoors in recreational environments.…”

“…Recent combined progress in microtechnology and precise protein immobilization on a variety of materials allowed for the development of microfluidic platforms designed as low cost easily operated point-of-care (PoC) biosensing systems offering a broader availability in locations where the use of costly and complex instruments is not an option [11][12][13].…”

Plasma and Polymers: Recent Progress and Trends

“…The mouse IgG antibodies labelled with two different methods were used. Reproduced from Wieland et al (2020) [ 40 ] under conditions of the CC BY license.…”