Characterization of biomaterial surfaces and their interaction with relevant proteins helps understand fundamental issues of protein � polymer interactions and can provide insights into biocompatibility. Synchrotron based X-ray photoemission electron microscopy (X-PEEM) and scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) are being used to study distributions of proteins adsorbed on chemically heterogeneous polymer surfaces with ~30 nm spatial resolution. X-ray absorption spectroscopy provides speciation and quantitation of both adsorbed proteins or peptides (and in combinations) simultaneously with imaging the underlying polymer substrate (B.O. Leung,  J.L. Brash and A.P. Hitchcock, Materials 3 (2010) 3911). Results from two recent investigations will be reported: (1) A study of the relative sensitivity of X-PEEM and STXM for  detecting human serum albumin (HSA) adsorption to spun-cast PS/PMMA thin films. (2) A study of HSA adsorption to a PS/PMMA-b-PAA blend which demonstrates control of electrostatic interactions between protein and protonated or deprotonated PAA segments.

Soft X-ray spectromicroscopy of protein interactions with phase segregated polymer surfaces

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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