Effect of plasma polymerization on physicochemical properties of biocomposite cryogels causing a differential
1Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India.
Hypothesis:
Plasma polymerization has been vastly employed for bringing changes in the surface functionality of the biomaterials by changing the surface chemistry without affecting the bulk properties. Therefore, we wanted to analyze the effect of plasma polymerization on the cellular response towards biocomposite cryogel surface and expected a positive response as found with the previous biomaterials.
Experiments:
We performed experiments for the incorporation of polyallylamine plasma on the polyvinyl alcohol-tetraethylorthosilicate-alginate-calcium oxide (PTAC) biocomposite cryogel surface. After plasma modification, the plasma coated/modified surfaces were studied at physicochemical level via methods like X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, contact angle and rheology analysis. At biological level, analysis was performed through scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) assay.
Findings:
In this paper we highlight a different aspect of plasma modification where both physical and chemical characteristics of surface gets altered on modification of PTAC biocomposite cryogels with plasma polymerized allylamine (ppAAm). This further affected the response of human osteoblasts on these modified/coated cryogels when compared to the unmodified/uncoated cryogels, wherein, the human osteoblasts on coated cryogel surface show higher alkaline phosphatase production and delayed mineralization as compared to the uncoated cryogels.
