Effect of grafted PEG chain conformation on albumin and lysozyme adsorption: A combined study using QCM-D and DPI

In this study, elucidation of protein adsorption mechanism is performed using dual polarization interferometry (DPI) and quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) to study adsorption behaviors of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and lysozyme (LYZ) on poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) layers. From the analysis of DPI, PEG2000 and PEG5000 show tight and loose mushroom conformations, respectively. Small amount of LYZ could displace the interfacial water surrounding the tight mushroomed PEG2000 chains by hydrogen bond attraction, leading to protein adsorption. The loose mushroomed PEG5000 chains exhibit a more flexible conformation and high elastic repulsion energy that could prevent protein adsorption of all BSA and most of LYZ. From the analysis of QCM, PEG2000 and PEG5000 show tight and extended brush conformations. The LYZ adsorbed mass has critical regions of PEG2000 (0.19 chain/nm(2)) and PEG5000 (0.16 chain/nm(2)) graft density. When graft density of PEG is higher than the critical region (brush conformations), the attraction of hydrogen bonds between PEG and LYZ is the dominant factor. When graft density of PEG is lower than the critical region (mushroom conformations), elastic repulsion between PEG and proteins is driven by the high conformation entropy of PEG chains, which is the dominant force of steric repulsion in PEG-protein systems. Therefore, the adsorption of BSA is suppressed by the high elastic repulsion energy of PEG chains, whereas the adsorption of LYZ is balanced by the interactions between the repulsion of entropy elasticity and the attraction of hydrogen bonds.