Self-assembly of human plasma fibrinogens on binary organosilane monolayers with micro domains

Abstract

The adsorption behavior and self-assembly of human plasma fibrinogen (HPF) on binary methyl- and amino-terminated self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The binary SAMs were fabricated through self-assembly mechanism of organosilane molecules. The height of domains is the domain height is 0.8 ± 0.2 nm from the AFM topographic image. It corresponds to the domain height is 0.8 ± 0.2 nm from the AFM topographic image. It corresponds to the difference between the length of the alkyl chain of octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) and that of n-(6-aminohexyl)aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (AHAPS). The fibrinogen solution used ultrapure water as the solvent and its pH was adjusted at 3 and 10. From the AFM results at pH 3, HPF only formed network structures on the OTS domains of the binary SAM at early immersion times, and then the network structures expanded and connected between OTS domains through the AHAPS surface at long immersion times. In this case, a few HPFs are discretely adsorbed on the AHAPS surface. However, HPF is uniformly adsorbed on the binary SAM under the other conditions of pH.