Description
Publicado em "Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine", vol. 7, supp. 1 (2013) Some marine species, such as mussels, can strongly attach themselves to rocks in the
diffficult conditions of the sea. In fact, marine mussels secrete adhesive proteins that
show a high adhesion to both inorganic and organic surfaces in aqueous environments.
These proteins have an amino acid designated as 3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine
(DOPA) which in turn possesses catechol groups that are primarily responsible for
these strong adhesive bonds. Inspired by this behaviour, layer-by-layer (LbL) films
based on polymers that contain catechol groups were developed. It is expected that
such materials will present an enhanced cell adhesion when they are applied in
biomedical applications. Dopamine-modified hyaluronic acid (HA-DN), which
possesses catechol groups, was prepared by carbodiimide chemistry. This conjugate
was characterized by distinct techniques, such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
and ultra-violet spectrophotometry (UV). Then films were developed based on chitosan
(CHT) and HA-DN using the Layer-by-Layer (LbL) technique. The formation of these
films was investigated in-situ by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring
(QCM-D). The adhesion properties of the coatings were also analyzed. In vitro tests
using distinct cell sources revealed an enhanced cell adhesion, proliferation and
viability for the films that contain catechol groups, which demonstrates their potential to
be used in biomedical applications.
; Cibrão, Ana 
