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Optical switching of protein interactions on photosensitive–electroactive polymers measured by atomic force microscopy

Gelmi, Amy, Zanoni, Michele, Higgins, Michael, Gambhir, Sanjeev, Officer, David, Diamond, Dermot orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-2944-4839 and Wallace, Gordon orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-0381-7273 (2013) Optical switching of protein interactions on photosensitive–electroactive polymers measured by atomic force microscopy. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 2013 (1). pp. 2162-2168. ISSN 1364-5501

Abstract
The ability to switch the physico-chemical properties of conducting polymers opens up new possibilities for a range of new applications. Appropriately functionalised materials can provide routes to multi-modal switching, for example in response light and/or electrochemical stimuli; this capability is important in the field of bionics, wherein remote control of the properties of materials opens new possibilities. For example, the ability to actuate a film via photonic stimuli is particularly interesting as it facilitates the modulation of interactions between surface host binding sites and potential guest molecules. In this work, we studied two different poly-terthiophenes: one was functionalized with a spiropyran photoswitch (pTTh-SP) and the second with a non photoswitchable methyl acetate moeity (pTTh-MA). These substrates were exposed to several cycles of illumination with light of different wavelengths and the resulting effect studied with UV-vis spectroscopy, contact angle and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The AFM tips were chemically activated with fibronectin (FN) and the adhesion force of the protein to the polymeric surface was measured. The pTTh-MA (no SP incorporated) showed a slightly higher average maximum adhesion (0.96 ± 0.14 nN) than the modified pTTh-SP surface (0.77 ± 0.08 nN), but after exposure of the pTTh-SP polymer to UV, the average maximum adhesion of the pTTh-MC was significantly smaller (0.49 ± 0.06 nN) than both the pTTh MA and pTTh-SP. These results suggest that hydrophobic forces are predominant indetermining the protein adhesion to the films studied and that this effect can be photonically tuned. By extension, this further implies that it should be possible to obtain a degree of spatial and temporal control of the surface binding behaviour of certain proteins with these functionalised surfaces through photoactivation/ deactivation, which, in principle, should facilitate patterned growth behaviour (e.g. using masks or directional illumination) or photocontrol of protein uptake and release.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:photosensitive–electroactive polymers
Subjects:Physical Sciences > Photochemistry
Biological Sciences > Biochemistry
Physical Sciences > Chemistry
DCU Faculties and Centres:Research Initiatives and Centres > CLARITY: The Centre for Sensor Web Technologies
Publisher:Royal Society of Chemistry
Official URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C3TB00463E
Copyright Information:© 2013 RSC
Use License:This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. View License
ID Code:17879
Deposited On:21 May 2013 08:42 by Mr. Michele Zanoni . Last Modified 30 Jan 2019 11:35
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