Fabrication of PP-g-PEGMA-g-heparin and its hemocompatibility: From protein adsorption to anticoagulant tendency

We described a two-step process to fabricate the heparinized polypropylene (PP) film using cyanuric chloride (CC) as a trifunctional reagent and poly (ethylene glycol) methacrylate (PEGMA) as a spacer. The modified PP films were characterized by attenuated total reflectance FT-IR and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; the content of PEGMA and heparin were determined by gravimetric method and a toluidine blue assay, respectively. For the PP-g-PEGMA films, it was found that small size protein BSA tended to adsorb on the surface of low molecular weight monomer grafted PP, whereas big spindle-shaped fibrinogen tended to adsorb on the surface of high molecular weight monomer grafted PP. We gave a definition of anti-protein adsorptive factor r with two model proteins, albumin and fibrinogen. The results by platelet adhesion and plasma recalcification time (PRT) experiments indicated that the factor r could be used to quantitatively evaluate the anticoagulant tendency of PP-g-PEGMA modified films. For the PP-g-PEGMA-g-heparin modified films, the surface was proved to have a high bioactivity by the adsorption of AT III assay and very low platelet adhesion. It indicated that immobilization of heparin on the PP film with PEGMA as a spacer was an effective way to improve the hemocompatibility of PP.