Hydrogels tethers

Figure 17.6 Redox hydrogel approach to immobilizing multiple layers of a redox enzyme on an electrode, (a) Structure of the polymer, (b) Voltammograms for electrocatalytic O2 reduction by a carbon fiber electrode modified with laccase in the redox hydrogel shown in (a) (long tether) or a version with no spacer atoms in the tether between the backbone and the Os center (short tether). Reprinted with permission fi om Soukharev et al., 2004. Copyright (2004) American Chemical Society.

Mao F, Mano N, Heller A. 2003. Long tethers binding redox centers to polymer backbones enhance electron transport in enzyme wiring hydrogels. J Am Chem Soc 125 4951 -4957. 

In this study, we report a very effective and widely applicable method for fabricating of nanostructures of an inert material for the biomolecular nanoarrays. The stable nanostructures of the PEG and PVA hydrogels were directly fabricated on gold substrates by UV-NIL (Fig. la). The site-selective nanoarray of various biomolecules such as protein and tethered lipid bilayer raft membrane (tLBRM) was constructed from a nanoimprinted inert materials by stepwise molecular self-assembly (Fig. lb and Ic). 

Array of Tethered Bilayer Lipid Rafts with Nanoimprinted PVA Hydrogel... 

And finally, the very promising application of hydrogels as cushions but also as protective coatings for the tethered membrane architectures, eventually allowing even for operations in air, is presented and discussed. 

It has been shown that the chemical nature of the polymer cushion can be very flexible with examples ranging from polyelectrolytes to carbohydrate-containing macromolecules and cross-linked hydrogels. So far, the cushion has played only a rather passive role in that it was almost exclusively used as a structural element in the build-up of the tethered membrane architectures. The real potential, however, lies in the fact that these polymer systems could play a crucial functional role for these... 

DuBose, J.W., CutshaU, C. and Metiers, A.T., 2005. Controlled release of tethered molecules via engineered hydrogel degradation model development and validation. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, 74A(1), 104—116. 

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