Photoreactive Carboxybetaine Copolymers Impart Biocompatibility and Inhibit Plasticizer Leaching on Polyvinyl Chloride
Posted by Adam Awdish on
Pooled Human Complement Serum from Innovative Research was used in the following study:
Xiaojie Lin, Kan Wu, Qiong Zhou, Priyesh Jain, Mary O’Kelly Boit, Bowen Li, Hsiang-Chieh Hung, Sharon A. Creason, Jonathan Himmelfarb, Buddy D. Ratner, and Shaoyi Jiang
American Chemical Society
September 2, 2020
Medical-grade poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is commonly used in flexible medical products because of its transparency, strength, and affordability. Although toxicological, biological, and physiological testing of PVC products has deemed them safe, medical-grade PVC-based materials are criticized for high thrombin generation and complement activation. Further, there is a risk of materials leaching from the PVC into the patients, which can lead to various health problems in certain patients. Although there have been promising studies on alternative nontoxic and nonmigrating plasticizers, there are not comprehensive studies of the long-term effects and effectiveness of these alternatives. Therefore, most medical-grade PVC materials on the market are still prepared using conventional methods and are thus subject to the leaching of undesirable free plasticizers.
A major factor in determining the bio-interactions of materials are its interactions with proteins in the blood. Because of this, a common strategy for combating leaching from PVC materials is to coat the PVC with surfaces that reduce protein adsorption. Some of the current methods for reducing unwanted biological interactions of medical-grade PVC materials include integrating hydrophobic components, using hydrophilic antifouling materials, and changing the nanostructure of the material’s surface. Unfortunately, none of these methods clearly demonstrated the capability to effectively solve both the unwanted biological interactions and plasticizer leaching simultaneously. In fact, hydrophobic materials containing fouling-release moieties can potentially cause platelet and complement activation during adhesion-release cycles, and blood proteins have a higher adhesion affinity to hydrophobic surfaces and exhibit a less organized structure when bonded to them.
Researchers in this study tested a surface modification strategy for a carboxybetaine copolymer, aiming to directly modify commercial, hydrophobic, medical-grade plasticized PVC tubing with a high hydrophilicity, non-fouling surface while inhibiting plasticizer migration from the PVC tubing. The surface modification is accomplished via simple dip-coating followed by light illumination with polymers comprising zwitterionic carboxybetaine moieties and photosensitive cross-linking moieties. This surface treatment can be manufactured routinely at small or large scales and can impart to commercial PVC materials superhydrophilicity and non-fouling capability, and showed the polymer effectively prevented leaching of plasticizers out from commercial medical-grade PVC materials. This versatile technique is applicable to other polymers and medical devices requiring surfaces that will enhance performance in clinical settings.
Related products available from Innovative Research also include:
Single Donor Human Whole Blood