Fabrication of honeycomb‐structured protein arrays via one‐step method

Abstract

ABSTRACT“Inverse emulsion”‐“breath figures” (Ie‐BF) method was introduced for fabricating porous films with protein arrays decorating the interior of the obtained polymeric pores. Compared with the traditional BF method in which only hydrophobic or amphiphilic components could be used, Ie‐BF method created a system with water phase carrying water‐soluble protein before solution casting, which makes it possible to obtain patterned protein arrays within the BF structure in one‐step. The stability of the inverse emulsion system is an intractable problem solved by high shearing emulsification. Experimental parameters, including the concentration of the matrix polymer, water/oil ratio of the IE, amount of both emulsifier and protein in IE, were evaluated for establishing an optimal condition to prepare fine BF arrays by following the Ie‐BF method. Proteins tagged with fluorescein isothiocyanate were added into the emulsion to cast films, and pores efficiently enriched by proteins were revealed by the images of fluorescence microscope, indicating the successful preparation of protein arrays. Among all the approaches of establishing patterned structures of biomacromolecules, Ie‐BF shows promising potential in future applications. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47084.

Research on the implementing conditions of inverse emulsion‐breath figure method

“…In our previous study, hydrophilic components were reported to be selectively assembled within the BF pore structure by performing the one‐step Ie‐BF procedure, breaking through the implementation limitations of the traditional BF method 26–28 . In the current study, fluorescein isothiocyanate‐conjugated bovine serum albumin (FITC‐BSA) was introduced as a tagged “loading package” to further study the spatial distribution of BSA in the porous film under different implementation conditions.…”

“…The inverse emulsion was then cast onto solid substrate to make the BF patterned film. The resultant BF pore arrays were selectively decorated with the droplet‐containing biomolecules 26–28 . Ie‐BF method was firstly proposed by our group to fabricate 3D multi‐layered micro‐porous structure BF films 18,29 .…”

“…The resultant BF pore arrays were selectively decorated with the droplet-containing biomolecules. [26][27][28] Ie-BF method was firstly proposed by our group to fabricate 3D multi-layered micro-porous structure BF films. 18,29 By tuning the experimental conditions of the Ie-BF method, pore-formation with random distribution were achieved in the bulk layer of the obtained polystyrene film underneath the top-layer BF pore arrays with regular arrangement, forming asymmetric multi-layered micro-porous structures.…”

“…"Inverse emulsion"-"breath figures" (Ie-BF) method, which combine BF process with inverse emulsion system, employs emulsion (water) droplets as carriers to introduce hydrophilic components into BF process. 18,[26][27][28][29] For the Ie-BF process, aqueous solution of hydrophilic components such as protein was mixed with polymer solution to make inverse emulsion with the emulsion water droplets loaded with biomolecules. The inverse emulsion was then cast onto solid substrate to make the BF patterned film.…”

Breath figure templated self-assembly of surface-acylated cellulose nanowhiskers confined as honeycomb films

“…Honeycomb films with well-ordered pores with a narrow size distribution are of significant interest in advanced functional materials, such as separation (Du et al 2013), templates (Galeotti et al 2011), optical and optoelectronic devices (Yabu and Shimomura 2005), biosensors and biomaterials (Min et al 2008;Wan et al 2012), protein arrays (Ju et al 2019), and cell culture scalfolds (Neznalova ´et al 2020). Over the past few decades, a variety of techniques, including lithography (Kim et al 2009), colloidal templates (Hu et al 2009), emulsion (Kasai and Kondo 2004), improved phase separation (IPS) (Bui et al 2015;Slepic ˇka et al 2020), and breath figure (BF) (Huang et al 2020), have been developed to create ordered structures with uniform pore sizes in the nano-to micrometer range.…”