HEMOCOMPATIBILITY STUDIES OF LAYER-BY-LAYER POLYELECTROLYTE COMPLEXES FOR BIO-BASED POLYMERS

Abstract

Thrombogenesis is an important issue that causes blood-contacting biomedical device failure. This study focuses on hemocompatibility studies of novel blood-contacting polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) for biomedical application designs. PEC films were fabricated from biobased polymers of silk fibroin (SF), chitosan (CH), and sodium alginate (AL) through the solvent casting method as well as Layer-by-Layer (LbL) technique. Characterization was carried out by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Atomic force microscopy (AFM), and Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyses. FTIR spectra displayed all layers’ characteristic peaks of SF, CH, and AL. AFM images indicated that the addition of AL as an outer layer increased surface roughness. DSC analysis suggested that the best thermal stability has been observed with the CH outer layer of PECs. SEM micrograph analysis indicated that the morphologies of PECs were affected by the inclusion of the clopidogrel bisulfate (CLB). Hemocompatibility properties were investigated by complete blood count (CBC), prothrombin time (PT), international normalized ratio (INR), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), platelet adhesion, erythrocyte morphology analysis, in vitro cholesterol, and albumin level tests. These hemocompatibility analyses demonstrated that the PEC surfaces provide favourable principles to design and develop non-thrombogenic PECs for blood-contacting biomedical applications