Preventing Peptide Non-Specific Adsorption to Tissue Culture Surfaces (2015)

Undergraduates: Tuong Nguyen, Emilie Mainz Angie Proctor

Faculty Advisor: Nancy Allbritton
Department: Biology

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Fluorescently tagged peptide substrates are a fairly simple and inexpensive method to track enzymatic pathways and activities in single cells. This method, coupled with capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence detection, yields sensitive measurements (on the order of 10^-20 moles) for analysis of single cell enzymatic activity. A problem that arises from this method is the non-specific adsorption of the peptide to the surface that the cells grow on. Solutions for reducing or eliminating the problem of non-specific adsorption can be to coat or covalently bond the tissue culture surface with another compound to block this unfavorable interaction. One such method to ameliorate the non-specific adsorption will be to use APDIPES, a compound that contains a hydrophobic di-isopropylethoxysilane group to repel peptides and a primary amine group to let cells adhere for growth. This compound was covalently bonded to the surface of the glass tissue culture surface through chemical vapor deposition (CVD). NHS-PEG is another hydrophobic compound due to its ethylene chain, which can also repel peptide. Combining NHS-PEG and APDIPES can produce a surface that repels peptide but is simultaneously viable for cell growth. The surface was characterized by measuring its contact angle and infrared absorbance. Peptide adsorption was reduced significantly but not completely prevented. This work represents a promising way to solve the problem of non-specific peptide adsorption.