Antifouling surfaces in medical application

Abstract

The uncontrolled adhesion of biological compounds on the surface of implant materials is a harmful phenomenon that causes the function of medical devices to deteriorate. The design of surfaces that resist nonspecific protein, cell or bacteria adsorption (so-called antifouling surfaces) is of special interest as it is critical for the development of medical devices that have contact with physiological fluids. Significant efforts have been made in coating surfaces with bioinert macromolecules. Both self-assembled monolayers (SAM) and polymer brushes have attracted considerable attention due to their facile synthesis, their diverse physicochemical properties (composition, molar mass or topology) and their tunable surface chemistry (film thickness, grafting density, conformation and flexibility). In this article, a general description of surfaces with nonfouling properties is provided. Two basic classes of nonfouling polymers (hydrophilic and zwitterionic) are discussed with a series of practical examples.