Protein purification with polymeric affinity membranes containing functionalized poly(acid) brushes.

Porous nylon membranes modified with poly(acid) brushes and their derivatives can rapidly purify proteins via ion-exchange and metal-ion affinity interactions. Membranes containing poly(2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl succinate) (poly(MES)) brushes bind 118 +/- 8 mg of lysozyme per cm(3) of membrane and facilitate purification of lysozyme from chicken egg white. Moreover, functionalization of the poly(MES) brushes with nitrilotriacetate (NTA)-Ni(2+) complexes yields membranes that bind poly(histidine)-tagged (His-tagged) ubiquitin with a capacity of 85 +/- 2 mg of protein per cm(3) of membrane. Most importantly, the membranes modified with poly(MES)-NTA-Ni(2+) allow isolation of His-tagged cellular retinaldehyde-binding protein directly from a cell extract in <10 min, and the protein purity is comparable to that achieved with commercial affinity columns. Therefore, porous nylon membranes containing functionalized poly(MES) brushes are attractive candidates for rapid, high-capacity purification of His-tagged proteins from cell extracts.

Highly ordered palladium nanodots and nanowires from switchable block copolymer thin films.

We demonstrate a new approach to fabricate highly ordered arrays of nanoscopic palladium dots and wires using switchable block copolymer thin films. The surface-reconstructed block copolymer templates were directly deposited with palladium nanoparticles from a simple aqueous solution. The preferential interaction of the nanoparticles with one of the blocks is mainly responsible for the lateral arrangement of the nanoparticles inside the pores of the templates in addition to the capillary forces. A subsequent stabilization by UV-irradiation followed by pyrolysis in air at 450 degrees C removes the polymer to produce highly ordered metallic nanostructures. We extended this approach to micellar films to obtain metallic nanostructures. This method is highly versatile as the procedure used here is simple, eco-friendly and provides a simple approach to fabricate a broad range of nanoscaled architectures with tunable lateral spacing, and can be extended to systems with even smaller dimensions.

Nanowear studies in reversibly switchable polystyrene-poly(acrylic acid) mixed brushes.

Wear studies were performed on polystyrene (PS)-poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) mixed polymer brushes and corresponding monobrushes in a dried state. The aim was to study the wear mechanism in polymer brush surfaces as well as to investigate the effect of switching of PS + PAA binary brush surfaces (on treatment with the selective solvents for the PS and PAA) on the wear process. Wear experiments were carried out using atomic force microscopy (AFM) under a controlled environment. The wear experiments were performed as a function of scan number using a sharp silicon nitride tip to induce the wear on the sample surfaces. The wear mechanism on different brush surfaces was influenced by molecular entanglement as well as adhesion and friction on the sample surface. The wear process on the PS monobrush surface treated with toluene took place via formation of the ripples. On the other hand, a typical wear mode observed on the PAA monobrushes was removal of the polymeric material from the surface. For the mixed brush surface treated with toluene (selective solvent for PS) where PS chains dominated the top of the sample surface, the typical wear mode observed was ripple formation similar to that observed for the PS monobrushes. However, when a mixed brush was treated with ethanol and pH 10 water so that PAA chains dominated the top layer, wear occurred via removal of material. The amount of wear on the surfaces increased with the number of scans. Furthermore, the load and scan velocity dependence of the wear process was also investigated. Wear on polymer brush surfaces increased on increasing the load and/or decreasing the scan speed. The present study shows that wear can be controlled/tuned using mixed responsive brushes.