Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 1H9, Canada.
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211189, China.
Adv Mater. 2023 Feb;35(6):e2208824. doi: 10.1002/adma.202208824. Epub 2022 Dec 19.
Implantable medical devices have been widely applied in diagnostics, therapeutics, organ restoration, and other biomedical areas, but often suffer from dysfunction and infections due to irreversible biofouling. Inspired by the self-defensive "vine-thorn" structure of climbing thorny plants, a zwitterion-conjugated protein is engineered via grafting sulfobetaine methacrylate (SBMA) segments on native bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein molecules for surface coating and antifouling applications in complex biological fluids. Unlike traditional synthetic polymers of which the coating operation requires arduous surface pretreatments, the engineered protein BSA@PSBMA (PolySBMA conjugated BSA) can achieve facile and surface-independent coating on various substrates through a simple dipping/spraying method. Interfacial molecular force measurements and adsorption tests demonstrate that the substrate-foulant attraction is significantly suppressed due to strong interfacial hydration and steric repulsion of the bionic structure of BSA@PSBMA, enabling coating surfaces to exhibit superior resistance to biofouling for a broad spectrum of species including proteins, metabolites, cells, and biofluids under various biological conditions. This work provides an innovative paradigm of using native proteins to generate engineered proteins with extraordinary antifouling capability and desired surface properties for bioengineering applications.
植入式医疗器械已广泛应用于诊断、治疗、器官修复和其他生物医学领域，但由于不可逆的生物污垢，它们经常出现功能障碍和感染。受攀援多刺植物自我防御的“刺-刺”结构的启发，通过将磺基甜菜碱甲基丙烯酸酯 (SBMA) 片段接枝到天然牛血清白蛋白 (BSA) 蛋白分子上，设计了一种两性离子共轭蛋白，用于表面涂层和在复杂生物流体中的抗污应用。与需要艰苦的表面预处理的传统合成聚合物不同，工程蛋白 BSA@PSBMA（聚 SBMA 接枝 BSA）可以通过简单的浸渍/喷涂方法在各种基质上实现简便且与表面无关的涂层。界面分子力测量和吸附测试表明，由于 BSA@PSBMA 的仿生结构具有强烈的界面水合作用和空间排斥作用，显著抑制了基质-污垢的吸引力，使涂层表面具有出色的抗生物污垢能力，能够抵抗包括蛋白质、代谢物、细胞和生物流体在内的各种生物条件下的多种物种的生物污垢。这项工作为使用天然蛋白质生成具有非凡抗污能力和所需表面特性的工程蛋白提供了一种创新范例，可用于生物工程应用。
