Polyelectrolyte multilayers which are prepared through layer-by-layer deposition of oppositely charged polymers onto substrates, have been successfully incorporated in several biomedical applications. Thiolation of surfaces is an important modification technique to allow further grafting. A versatile approach was devised to create well defined thiolated surfaces for different applications. Specifically Michael addition conjugations involving thiols and electron deficient maleimides. Synthetic surfaces lack biological components, so these engineered surfaces can be conjugated to contain RGD peptides to test fibroblast adhesion. New paths to immobilize PEG directly to a thiolated surface were developed. Finally, the assembly of gold nanoparticles on thiol-functionalized polyelectrolyte multilayers was investigated. Synthesizing thiolated moieties with complex functional groups such RGD peptides, gold nanoparticles, and PEG is generally difficult due to a lack of stability, but our techniques resulted in high yield and high selectivity.

Versatile approach to constructing well-defined thiolated surfaces

256th National Meeting (2018)

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