Comparison of two different plasma surface-modification techniques for the covalent immobilization of protein monolayers

The immobilization of biologically active species is crucial for the fabrication of smart bioactive surfaces. For this purpose, plasma polymerization is frequently used to modify the surface nature without affecting the bulk properties of the material. Thus, it is possible to create materials with surface functional groups that can promote the anchoring of all kinds of biomolecules. Different methodologies in protein immobilization have been developed in recent years, although some drawbacks are still not solved, such as the difficulties that some procedures involve and/or the denaturalization of the protein due to the immobilization process. In this work, two different strategies to covalently attach bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein are developed. Both techniques are compared in order to understand how the nature of the surface modification affects the conformation of the protein upon immobilization.