Joshua W. Lampe, Emergency Medicine, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, 125 South 31st Street, Suite 1200, Philadelphia, PA 19104, Ivan J. Dmochowski, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 231 South 34th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, Portonovo S. Ayyaswamy, Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania, 229 Towne Building, 220 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, and David M. Eckmann, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 331 John Morgan Building/6112, 3620 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
In this presentation a novel confocal imaging technique is described which allows for the visualization and therefore measurement of the surface concentration as a function of time during the adsorption process. Here, the primary interest is in blood protein adsorption to the gas liquid interface. Two fluorescently labeled proteins are used in the experiments, a bovine serum albumin-Texas Red (BSA-TR) conjugate and a human fibrinogen-Oregon Green (HF-OG) conjugate. Single protein solutions, two-protein solutions, and Pluronic PF-127 and HF-OG solutions are investigated. The method does not require any a priori knowledge of protein orientation or conformation at the interface, and thus is a large first step toward a simple and reliable method to measure and compare surface concentrations during protein adsorption.