Protein immobilization and fluorescence quenching on polydopamine thin films

Mussel inspired polydopamine (PDA) film has attracted great interest as a versatile functional coating for biomolecule immobilization in various bio-related devices. However, the details regarding the interaction between a protein and PDA film remain unclear. Particularly, there is very limited knowledge regarding the protein immobilization on PDA film, even though it is of essential importance in various fields. The situation is even more complicated if considering the fact that quite a number of approaches (e.g., different oxidizing reagent, buffer pH, grown time, grown media, etc.) have been developed to grow PDA films. In this work, protein attachment on PDA film was systematically investigated by using the real-time and label-free surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technique. The kinetics of protein-PDA interaction was explored and the influence of buffer pH and deposition media on the protein attachment was studied. Fluorescent protein microarray was further printed on PDA-coated glass slides for quantitative investigations and together with SPR data, the interesting fluorescence quenching phenomenon of PDA film was revealed. This work may deepen our understanding on the PDA-protein interaction and offer a valuable guide for efficient protein attachment on PDA film in various bio-related applications.