KSEA events Surface and Interfacial Chemistry of Bio-inspired Phenolic Coatings (190213 KSEA Berkeley Chapter Seminar)

ABSTRACT: Polydopamine, a representative phenolic coating introduced by the Messersmith lab, is a biomimetic coating that forms on most surfaces when solutions of dopamine are exposed to oxygen under mildly alkaline conditions (Lee et al., 2007). Related coatings (i.e., polyphenols), sharing a similar build-up mechanism (combination of physical and chemical self-assembly of phenolic building blocks), have also been introduced. Since the chemistry of each coating is slightly different, a suitable platform can be chosen from among different polyphenols to achieve different purposes, but all such phenolic coatings share the same chemical property in terms of their catechol (1,2-dihydroxybenzene) functionality. Due to the covalent-binding potential between the catechol groups and both amines and thiols, which are ubiquitous in biological macromolecules, the phenolic coatings have been adopted as a powerful tool for immobilization of biological macromolecules. By adopting this surface chemistry, we are currently developing support film technology for cryoEM (cryogenic electron microscopy), which enables us to study structures of biomacromolecules that are difficult to solve today. At this seminar, I will share some of our current results on this.