Sensing surface PEGylation with microcantilevers

• Natalija Backmann,
• Natascha Kappeler,
• Thomas Braun,
• François Huber,
• Hans-Peter Lang,
• Christoph Gerber and
• Roderick Y. H. Lim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 3–13, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.2

• reversible collapse when switching between good and poor solvent conditions, respectively. Keywords: AFM; cantilever sensor; polyethylene glycol; polymer brush; reversible collapse; static mode; Introduction Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is often used as a protein-resistant surface layer in biomedicine and

• (phosphate-buffered saline buffer, PBS) and poor solvent conditions (a binary mixture of 20% 2-propanol in PBS), we observe a marked response that is characteristic of a reversible collapse in the PEG layer. Results PEGylation of Au-coated microcantilevers. In our study we applied a direct “grafting to

• . It is noteworthy that the microcantilever arrays are also sensitive to the reversible collapse [32] of tethered PEG chains by cycling through injections of PBS and 20% 2-propanol, respectively. The nanomechanical hallmark of the PEG chains switching from a brush-like to a collapsed conformation (de