Study on kinetics of early stage protein adsorption on poly(2-methoxyethylacrylate) (PMEA) surface

We have already reported that poly(2-methoxyethylacrylate) (PMEA) showed excellent blood compatibility featured by the significantly low adsorption of plasma protein and the low platelet adhesion. In this study, we tried to analyze the adsorption behavior of the plasma proteins (albumin and fibrinogen) on PMEA surface in terms of kinetics in the early stage of the adsorption reaction by using dynamic quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) method. In addition, the conformational changes of the proteins on the polymer surfaces were investigated. It was concluded from the results that the QCM method could be applied to the analysis of the kinetics in such a polymer–protein system. The characteristic of PMEA is that its detachment rate constant k−1, was higher than those from poly(2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate) (PHEMA) and polypropylene (PP) which were used as references. The degree of the conformational changes of the proteins decreases in the following order; PP>PHEMA>>PMEA. This was strongly related to the difference of the detachment rate constant k−1.