Use of surface plasmon resonance to investigate lateral wall deposition kinetics and properties of polydopamine films

Dopamine (DA) is a particularly important neurotransmitter. Polydopamine (pDA) films have been demonstrated to be important materials for the immobilization of biomolecules onto almost any type of solid substrate. In this study, a surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-based sensor system with the sensor chip surface parallel to the direction of gravity was used to investigate the lateral wall deposition kinetics and properties of pDA films. The deposition kinetics of pDA films are limited by the oxidation process. The pDA film could not be removed from the sensor chip completely by a strongly alkaline solution, indicating that the pDA film was heterogeneous in the direction of deposition. The pDA film formed near the interior of the solution was less stable than the film formed near the gold-solution interface. Adsorption of proteins on pDA film was studied compared with that on bare gold and dextran sensor chip. The reduction of Au(111) cations by the pDA film, forming a layer of gold particles, was monitored using SPR. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.