AVS 49th International Symposium
    Plasma Science Wednesday Sessions
       Session PS+BI-WeA

Paper PS+BI-WeA5
Plasma Micropatterning for the Spatially Controlled Adsorption of Proteins

Wednesday, November 6, 2002, 3:20 pm, Room C-103

Session: Plasma Processing for Biocompatible Surfaces
Presenter: J.D. Whittle, University of Sheffield, UK
Authors: J.D. Whittle, University of Sheffield, UK
R.D. Short, University of Sheffield, UK
D. Barton, University of Sheffield, UK
A.G. Shard, University of Sheffield, UK
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Many biological interactions are surface mediated, for example protein adsorption and subsequent cell adhesion. In vitro it may be desirable in a number of applications to exert spatial control over these interactions. i.e. Limiting the attachment of cells to particular surface regions. We investigate the use of masks as a method of fabricating surfaces with patterned chemistry by plasma polymerisation, with feature sizes down to around 10µm. We utilise imaging secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and fluorescent light microscopy to visualise these chemical patterns. We also show how these chemical patterns affect the adsorption of proteins, not only in terms of the the amount of adsorbed protein, but also their conformation. A natural extension of depositing well-defined regions of chemistry (patterns) is to be able to fabricate regions of controlled chemical change (gradients), the properties of which vary continuously along the length of the deposited feature without any sharp transitions. We show how plasma polymerisation may be used to deposit chemical gradient surfaces with chosen endpoints (for example, a gradient running from a hydroxyl though to an amine dominated surfaces), and profile (for example, linear, sigmoidal etc.) by careful manipulation of the plasma composition and deposition surface during the treatment. These gradient surfaces can be used to examine the affect of changing a particular surface parameter (for example, the surface concentration of amine functionalities) on protein adsorption.