Blood Plasma/Implant Interfaces FT—IR Studies of Adsorption on Polyethylene and Heparin‐Treated Polyethylene Surfaces

Abstract

Described is an attenuated total reflection (ATR), Fourier Transform infrared (FT-IR) technique useful for studying the adsorption of blood plasma proteins onto polymer surfaces. This technique has the advantage of employing whole [rabbit] blood plasma and has detected differences between the species adsorbed onto heparin-treated polymers as compared to the species adsorbed on untreated polymers. Differences detected consist of changes in conformation and/or composition of proteins adsorbed on treated and untreated polymers, and changes in amounts of carbohydrate-containing materials on the treated and untreated polymer surfaces. The advantages of FT-IR are its extreme sensitivity and its ability to work with highly complex systems such as whole blood plasma. These abilities should be of great value for providing direct molecular level information concerning protein adsorption from intact blood systems.