In vitro preparation and ellipsometric characterization of thin blood plasma clot films on silicon

The wound-healing process around implants differs from that of a normal healing without the inserted material. In this work, the composition of a natural wound surface was mimicked through clotting of a thin human blood plasma film with approximate ellipsometric thickness of 100 nm onto differently pretreated silicon surfaces. Their stability was investigated by incubations in sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) solutions. The enzymatic clot degradation was induced through addition of human tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) to the plasma and the surface protein remnants after the degradation were analyzed with polyclonal antibodies. The results show that the plasma films were not SDS resistant on hydrophilic silicon. However, stability was obtained after preparation on hydrophobic silicon or when albumin or fibrinogen was immobilized to silicon before the plasma incubations. Different surfaces bound different polyclonal antibodies after the clot film degradation. The methods indicate a simple means to improve or reestablish a normal tissue inflammatory response around biomaterials.