Collapse of Thermoresponsive Brushes and the Tuning of Protein Adsorption (original) (raw)

Protein adsorption onto thermoresponsive brushes is influenced significantly by brush collapse, which can be utilized in applications like protein chromatography and tissue engineering. This paper establishes a theoretical framework for the adsorption of proteins onto neutral water-soluble polymer (NWSP) brushes, specifically poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM), explaining how the free energy penalty for protein insertion is minimized under collapsed conditions. Through self-consistent field (SCF) theory and numerical solutions, the study reveals that tuning parameters such as grafting density and polymerization degree can effectively modulate protein interactions with these brushes.