Effect of silicone rubber surface on the calcium balance of human serum

The nature and mechanism of calcium complexation with human serum components in the presence of silicone rubber were assessed in in vitro model experiments. Silicone rubber samples were incubated for 67 h in serum of both physiologic calcium concentrations and induced hypercalcemic levels. Physiologic calcium incubation decreased the intrinsic and nth binding site association constants by factors of 2 and 4, respectively, from initial serum values. Incubation with silicone rubber did not change the association constants. Hypercalcemia incubation lowered the intrinsic and nth binding site association constants by 39 and 61%, respectively. Polymer incubation increased the intrinsic association constant and decreased the number of binding sites by a factor of 2. With initial binding site association constants unperturbed by incubation and Hill coefficients equivalent to 1, complexation was non-cooperative and binding sites were considered to be identical and independent. Both Scatchard and Hill plots show nonlinearity for the polymer incubation case giving two distinct linear regions. This is indicative of cooperative binding for incubation with polymer; the Hill coefficient for the physiologic calcium concentration range was 0.97, while the coefficient for the hypercalcemic calcium range was 6.