How to Increase Adhesion Strength of Catechol Polymers to Wet Inorganic Surfaces.

Mussel wet adhesion is known for its outstanding strength on a variety of surfaces. On the basis of the hypothesis that 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine, a catecholic amino acid, governs mussel adhesion, chemists have put much effort into the design of adhesive synthetic polymers containing catechols. However, the exceptional properties exhibited by the native proteins were hardly captured. The attempts to make those polymers stick to wet inorganic surfaces resulted in low adhesive forces. Here we synthesized poly(dopamine acrylamide) and measured the interaction forces with various inorganic surfaces using atomic force microscopy-based single-molecule force spectroscopy. We show that hydroxylation of the surface plays a pivotal role on the formation of strong bonds. We demonstrate that depending on the conditions, the whole range of interactions, from weak interactions to covalent bonds, can come into play.

Unraveling the complexity of the interactions of DNA nucleotides with gold by single molecule force spectroscopy.

Addressing the effect of different environmental factors on the adsorption of DNA to solid supports is critical for the development of robust miniaturized devices for applications ranging from biosensors to next generation molecular technology. Most of the time, thiol-based chemistry is used to anchor DNA on gold - a substrate commonly used in nanotechnology - and little is known about the direct interaction between DNA and gold. So far there have been no systematic studies on the direct adsorption behavior of the deoxyribonucleotides (i.e., a nitrogenous base, a deoxyribose sugar, and a phosphate group) and on the factors that govern the DNA-gold bond strength. Here, using single molecule force spectroscopy, we investigated the interaction of the four individual nucleotides, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, with gold. Experiments were performed in three salinity conditions and two surface dwell times to reveal the factors that influence nucleotide-Au bond strength. Force data show that, at physiological ionic strength, adenine-Au interactions are stronger, asymmetrical and independent of surface dwell time as compared to cytosine-Au and guanine-Au interactions. We suggest that in these conditions only adenine is able to chemisorb on gold. A decrease of the ionic strength significantly increases the bond strength for all nucleotides. We show that moderate ionic strength along with longer surface dwell period suggest weak chemisorption also for cytosine and guanine.