Surface Modification Using Peptide
Functionalized Bilayers

Dimitrios Stroumpoulis
Department of Chemical Engineering
UCSB Doctoral Candidate

Date: Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Place: Engineering II, Room 3361

ABSTRACT

Engineering materials that are capable of supporting cell and tissue growth is a challenging task that involves identifying and incorporating biological signals into the material surfaces or scaffolds. One approach towards bioactivity in materials is to mimic the function of the extracellular matrix (ECM) by displaying adhesion promoting oligopeptides. Supported planar bilayers (SPB) are a good platform to study molecular interactions at interfaces, since transmembrane proteins and peptides can be incorporated in a biologically relevant environment with precise control over their concentration and presentation.

SPBs can be formed on flat surfaces using the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique or alternatively from vesicle solutions. The fusion of vesicles with solid substrates offers simplicity and enhanced bilayer deposition rates over the LB method, whereas it can also be used with convex and enclosed surfaces. Ellipsometry and a mass transport model were used to investigate the kinetics of SPB formation on silicon dioxide surfaces from 100 nm diameter 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC) vesicles. For the range of concentrations studied, 0.025 to 0.380 mg/ml, a monotonic increase in the ellipsometric signal with time was observed until saturation and the adsorption rate constant was calculated. Further, a Monte Carlo model was used to simulate the SPB formation process and the computational results were successfully fit to the experimental data.

Lipid vesicles displaying RGD peptide amphiphiles were fused onto glass coverslips to control the ability of these surfaces to support cell adhesion and growth. Cell adhesion was prevented on phosphatidylcholine bilayers in the absence of RGD, whereas cells adhered and spread in the presence of accessible RGD amphiphiles. This specific interaction between cells and RGD peptides was further explored in a concentration dependent fashion by creating a surface composition array using a microfluidic device. For the range of concentrations studied adhesion and growth was favored by increased peptide concentration. Developing peptide composition gradients in a membrane environment is demonstrated as an effective method to screen biological ligands for cell adhesion and growth.