IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Biomaterials Thursday Sessions
       Session BI-ThM

Paper BI-ThM8
Polyelectrolyte Multilayers : A New Tool to Design Targeted Biofilms

Thursday, November 1, 2001, 10:40 am, Room 102

Session: Protein Surface Interaction
Presenter: P. Schaaf, Institut Charles Sadron / Universite Louis Pasteur Strasbourg, France
Authors: P. Schaaf, Institut Charles Sadron / Universite Louis Pasteur Strasbourg, France
L. Szyk, Unite INSERM U424 Strasbourg, France
B. Tinland, Institut Charles Sadron (CNRS) Strasbourg, France
F. Cuisinier, Unite INSERM U424 Strasbourg, France
P. Schwinte, Unite INSERM U424 Strasbourg, France
J.C. Voegel, Unite INSERM U424 Strasbourg, France
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The alternate deposition of polycations and polyanions on a solid surface allows to build a polyelectrolyte multilayer film. This method whose driving force is the charge overcompensation at each adsorption step, offers a simple and elegand way to design new types of films with applications ranging from non linear optics to nanoreactors. The buildup procedure also offers the possibility to develop new bioactive films with multiple functionalities. One can, for example, easily embed proteins into these films. We will present results relative to this later aspect and in particular to the structure and the diffusion of proteins embedded in multilayers. It will be shown that proteins embedded in multilayers are not irreversibly fixed but can diffuse along the film. The diffusion coefficient depends upon the polyelectrolytes in contact with the protein. Such films seem also to preserve the secondary structure of the adsorbed and embedded proteins an even to enhance their thermal stability. Polyelectrolyte multilayers appear also to inhibit the formation of intermolecular beta-sheets frequently observed during the heating of protein solutions. Some new perspectives of these films for the coating of biomaterials will finally be presented.