In Situ Surface Tailoring with Zwitterionic Carboxybetaine Moieties on Self-Assembled Thin Film for Antifouling Biointerfaces

A novel biointerface bearing zwitterionic carboxybetaine moieties was developed for effective resistance to nonspecific adsorption of proteins and blood cells. Self-assembled thin films (SAFs) of (N,N-dimethylaminopropyl) trimethoxysilane were formed as mattress layers by either vapor or solution deposition. Subsequently, the tertiary amine head groups on SAFs were reacted with β-propiolactone to give zwitterionic carboxybetaine moieties via in situ synthesis. The optimal reaction time of 8 h for both preparation methods was verified by static contact angle measurements. According to the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, 67.3% of amine groups on SAFs prepared from the vapor deposition was converted to the zwitterionic structures after reaction of β-propiolactone. The antifouling properties of the zwitterionic biointerfaces were quantitatively evaluated in the presence of protein solutions using a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation, showing a great improvement by factors of 6.5 and 20.2 from tertiary amine SAFs and bare SiO₂ surfaces, respectively. More importantly, the zwitterionic SAFs were brought to contact with undiluted human blood in chaotic-mixer microfluidic systems; the results present their capability to effectively repel blood cell adhesion. Accordingly, in this work, development of carboxybetaine SAFs offers a facile yet effective strategy to fabricate biocompatible biointerfaces for a variety of potential applications in surface coatings for medical devices.