Presentation and accessibility of surface bound ligands on amphiphilic graft copolymer films

Amphiphilic comb-type graft copolymers comprising a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) backbone and short, polyethylene oxide (PEO) side chains, PMMA-g-PEO, are proposed to self-organize at the polymer/water interface, resulting in quasi-2D confinement of the backbone at the immediate surface. The branched architecture and amphiphilic chemistry of these polymers results in a dense PEO brush that resists cell adhesion. To facilitate specific cell-surface interactions, small biological molecules such as adhesion peptides can be selectively tethered to PEO chain ends. Quasi-2D confinement of the polymer backbone results in clustering of tethered epitopes on a length scale dictated by the backbone. The present work investigates two aspects of this polymer architecture on organization of tethered ligands: nanometer length-scale clustering through backbone 2D confinement, and tether length effects on the availability of tethered peptides for cell adhesion.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Kuhlman, William A

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Anne M. Mayes and Linda G. Griffith.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/39549
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/39549

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/39549