Mass action effects on competitive adsorption of fibrinogen from hemoglobin solutions and from plasma.

The strong effect of protein adsorption on blood and tissue compatibility is well known. Little is presently known about the mechanisms which control the composition of the adsorbed protein layer which forms upon exposure of surfaces to mixtures of proteins. Reexamination of the ability of hemoglobin to inhibit the adsorption of 125I fibrinogen to polyethylene revealed that the inhibition was strongly dependent on the fibrinogen concentration. These results suggested that fibrinogen adsorption from more complex mixtures such as plasma should also be strongly dependent on total concentration. Fibrinogen adsorption from plasma was found to be maximal at intermediate plasma concentrations, and was reduced at both low and high plasma concentrations. The plasma concentration at which this maximum occurred was 10% for polytetrafluoroethylene, 1% for polyethylene, and 0.1% for glass. The unusual concentration dependence is attributed to mass action effects on the competitive adsorption of proteins, specifically that competitive effectiveness is expected to increase as unoccupied surface adsorptive sites become less frequent. Analogous effects of adsorption time on competitive adsorption are also predicted due to the changing concentration at the interface as the buffer is gradually replaced by protein solution. These mass action effects are very similar to previous qualitative observations by Vroman and are therefore dubbed the " Vroman effect".