Biomaterials, adsorption from protein mixtures

Protein adsorption from protein mixtures can be complex. For example, when plasma proteins from whole blood bind to biomaterials, albumin often binds initially and is later displaced by fibrinogen. Fibrinogen can then be displaced by other blood proteins (5). This is the Vroman Effect. Although the Vroman Effect was discovered for blood proteins, it may take place in other situations in which multiple components can bind. 

In all these applications of biomaterials, adsorption occurs from relatively complex solutions containing many different proteins. For this reason, much of the effort in my laboratories has focused on the behavior of protein adsorption as it occurs from protein mixtures. In this paper, a summary of these studies is provided with the... 

HORBETT Adsorption to Biomaterials from Protein Mixtures... 

Protein adsorption from relatively complex mixtures is involved in many different applications of biomaterials. A summary of all studies involving protein adsorption that were done in the author s laboratory is given largely in the form of an annotated table. Certain aspects of the methods results and conclusions of studies that pertain especially to adsorption from mixtures are also discussed. 

The results of studies in the author s laboratory summarized in Table 1 constitute a relatively large amount of information about how adsorption occurs from the protein mixtures typically encountered by biomaterials. Overall, the most important observations made are that variations in surface chemistry, time of adsorption, and protein type are major factors in determining the composition of the adsorbed layer. The adsorbed layer formed from mixtures thus contains a rather complex and changeable combination of proteins. 

---