Multicompartment films made of alternate polyelectrolyte multilayers of exponential and linear growth.
The layer by layer deposition process of polyelectrolytes is used to construct films equipped with several compartments containing "free polyelectrolytes". Each compartment corresponds to a stratum of an exponentially growing polyelectrolyte multilayer film, and two consecutive compartments are separated by a stratum composed of a linearly growing multilayer that acts as a barrier preventing polyelectrolyte diffusion from one compartment to another. We use hyaluronic acid/poly(L-lysine) as the system to build the compartments and the poly(styrene sulfonate)/poly(allylamine) system for the barrier. Using confocal microscopy, it is shown that poly(L-lysine) diffuses only within the compartment in which it was initially introduced during the film construction and is thus unable to cross the barriers. Using fluorescein isothiocyanate as a pH indicator, it is also shown that although poly(styrene sulfonate)/poly(allylamine) multilayers act as a barrier for polyelectrolytes, they do not prevent proton diffusion through the film. Such films open the route for multiple functionalization of biomaterial coatings.
INSERM Unité 595, Faculté de Chirurgie Dentaire, Université Louis Pasteur, 11 rue Humann, F-67085 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
Juan Méndez
JM
Garza
Pierre
P
Schaaf
Sylvaine
S
Muller
Vincent
V
Ball
Jean-François
JF
Stoltz
Jean-Claude
JC
Voegel
Philippe
P
Lavalle