Responsive Surfaces for Life Science Applications

This review describes recent developments in stimuli-responsive biointerfaces based on surface-tethered organic molecules, polymer chains, and polymer networks. The existing systems are classified according to the length scale of transformations occurring in the stimuli-responsive material and interactions of the material with the biological environment. In particular, two types of biointerfaces are considered: those whose interactions with proteins and cells can be switched reversibly or one time due to stimuli-triggered changes in molecular conformations or chemical bonds in functional molecules, and those that undergo reversible stimuli-triggered reconstruction at mesoscale due to stimuli-responsive phase behavior. Specific examples of stimuli-responsive surfaces from the recent literature are supplemented with discussion of potential biomedical applications.