synthesis of an amine terminated cholesterol group was based on literature . to a stirred solution of 1 . 0 molar equivalent i ( n - boc - 2 , 2 ′-[ ethylenedioxy ] diethylamine , sigma - aldrich ) and 1 . 1 molar equivalents ii ( cholesteryl chloroformate , sigma - aldrich ) in anhydrous toluene , 1 . 5 molar equivalents of dipea ( diisopropylethylamine , sigma - aldrich ) and a catalytic amount of dmap ( 4 - dimethylaminopyridine , sigma - aldrich ) were added . the reaction mixture was refluxed under argon atmosphere for 17 hours . subsequently , the solvent was removed under reduced pressure to obtain an oily residue . flash column chromatography was performed using 40 % ethyl acetate + 60 % hexane as eluent ( rf = 0 . 22 ). the solvent was removed under reduced pressure and the product iii was found to be an off white sticky residue . esi - tof : [ m ] + calcd 661 , [ m ] + found 661 . 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , cdcl 3 ): 5 . 37 ( t , 1h , olefinic h ), 5 . 25 ( t , 1h , nh ), 5 . 1 ( t , 1h nh ), 4 . 5 ( m , 1h , o — ch cholesterol ), 3 . 61 ( s , 4h , o — ch 2 — ch 2 — o ), 3 . 55 ( m , 4h , 2 × o — ch 2 ), 3 . 37 ( m , 4h , 2 × ch 2 in ch 2 nh ), 2 . 5 - 0 . 87 ( 34h , cholesterol ), 1 . 5 ( s , 9h tert boc ), 0 . 86 ( d , 6h 2 × ch 3 cholesterol ), 0 . 68 ( s , 3h , 1 × ch 3 cholesterol ). product iii was dissolved in dichloromethane and was added in a drop - wise manner to a stirred solution of 4 molar equivalents of tfa ( trifluoroacetic acid ) in dichloromethane . deprotection was obtained after 23 hours at room temperature under continuous stirring . using tlc the deprotection was monitored . solvent was removed under reduced pressure and the residue was dissolved in dichloromethane and neutralized with tea ( triethylamine ). flash column chromatography was performed using 1 % nh 3 ( aq ) solution ( 25 % nh 3 in water ), 9 % meoh and 90 % chloroform ( rf frac13 - 16 = 0 . 38 , rf frac17 - 35 = 0 . 24 ). after solvent removal a yellowish sticky residue was obtained ( 76 . 3 % yield ). the purified product was stored at − 20 ° c . until further use . 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , cdcl 3 ): 5 . 37 ( t , 1h , olefinic h ), 5 . 25 ( t , 1h nh ), 4 . 5 ( m , 1h , o — ch cholesterol ), 3 . 61 ( s , 4h , o — ch 2 — ch 2 — o ), 3 . 56 ( m , 4h , 2 × och 2 ), 3 . 52 ( t , 2h , nh 2 ), 3 . 37 ( m , 2h , ch 2 in ch 2 nh ), 2 . 89 ( t , 2h , ch 2 nh 2 ), 2 . 5 - 0 . 87 ( 34h , cholesterol ), 0 . 86 ( d , 6h , 2 × ch 3 cholesterol ), 0 . 68 ( d , 3h , 1 × ch 3 cholesterol ) polycaprolactone ( pcl ) was treated for ten seconds ( 10 s ) with oxygen plasma treatment ( opt ) using a plasma prep ii ( spi supplies ). this is a rf plasma treatment . the pcl used was a pcl sheet solvent casted from chloroform , mn 45 , 000 da ( sigma ). prior to sample treatment the chamber was cleaned during a 20 minutes cleaning run . the plasma treatment was performed using electromagnetic radiation having an energy of 400 j , at 200 mtorr of vacuum pressure . this was sufficient to generate aldehyde groups as shown by the purple discoloration of aldehyde - specific purpald dye in thin layer chromatography ( tlc ). the generation of aldehyde groups was further confirmed with x - ray photoelectron spectroscopy ( xps ) and ir - spectroscopy . quantera sxm ( scanning xps microprobe from physical electronics ) showed an increase in oxygen bearing groups , in particular o — c ≡ o and — c ═ o . moreover , bulk polymer modification was excluded by comparing fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with attenuated total reflectance ( ftir - atr ; diamond ) with polarization modulation infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy ( pm - irras ). only in pm - irras on spin - coated gold samples a shoulder appeared in the carbonyl region that was not observed in the atr spectra . due to the differences in sampling depth , atr diamond 5 μm and pm - irras nm regime , surface confinement of the oxygen plasma treatment was concluded . the plasma treatment was repeated with electromagnetic radiation having a different energy . the results of these experiments are given in fig1 . fig1 clearly shows that there is an optimum in the energy of the electromagnetic radiation at 400 j for the treatment of pcl , under the present experimental conditions . the opt modified polycaprolactone sheet according to example ii was contacted with 1 mm of amine terminated cholesterol group in ethanol . contacting lasted for 1 hour at room temperature while shaking the solution . the modified caprolactone sheet was reduced directly in a freshly made nabh 4 solution ( sigma ) i . e . 100 mg in 10 ml ethanol and 40 ml 1 × phosphate buffered saline ( pbs , sigma ). in this example and in example iva the pbs was prepared by the solution of a pbs tablet ( sigma ) in 200 ml of deionized water to yield a 0 . 01 m phosphate buffered saline , with 0 . 0027 m potassium chloride and 0 . 137 m sodium chloride ; ph 7 . 4 at 25 ° c . subsequently the samples were rinsed with milliq to remove salt and briefly sonicated in ethanol to remove adsorbed linker and dried under a stream of nitrogen . to evaluate whether the aldehyde groups , formed after oxygen plasma treatment , are reactive towards the cholesterol group time of flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy ( tof - sims ) ( waters - micromass lct ) and contact angle measurements were used . the surface modification of three different biopolymers treated with oxygen plasma treatment ( opt ) using electromagnetic radiation having an energy of 400 j was compared . the biopolymers tested were polycaprolactone ( pcl , mn = 45 kda ), a segmented block copolymer of poly ( ethylene oxide terephthalate ) and polybutylene terephthalate ( pa , polyactive ® 1000 / 70 / 30 ) and a block copolymer of polylactic acid and polycaprolactone ( pg , pla65 / pcl35 ). after the treatment with opt the samples were incubated with the amine terminated cholesterol group for 1 hour as described above . after both the opt treatment and the incubation with the amine terminated cholesterol group the sensile contact angle was determined . the sensile water contact angle was measured using a krüss contact angle measuring system g10 . the sample for contact angle measurement was placed horizontally with the side to be measured facing up . using the automated syringe a water droplet ( 30 μl droplet distilled or ultrapure milliq water ) was placed on the surface . the droplet was imaged within a period of 5 seconds . by the use of software fitting the sensile water contact angle with the sample surface was deduced . the samples were measured on multiple locations , & gt ; n = 3 , to ensure that a reliable value for the water contact angle was found . fig2 shows the contact angle for the native polymers ( pcl , pa and pg ), the contact angle after treatment with opt and the contact angle after incubation with the amine terminated cholesterol group . the contact angle becomes lower after the treatment with opt which means that the surface becomes more hydrophilic . after incubation with the amine terminated cholesterol group the surface of the polymers becomes more hydrophobic again . further the contact angle after treatment with opt was determined for the pg polymer . the contact angle was determined after various amounts of time as shown in table 1 . also the mobility properties of the bslb were determined . the incubation with the amine terminated cholesterol group was performed as described above . the method for the formation of the lipid bilayer was performed as described in example iv , a below . the amount of mobility of the lipid bilayer was determined by frap analysis as described in example iv , b below . the results of these experiments were used to determine for which amount of time the reactive groups a , were present on the surface of the pg polymer . table 1 shows that for a time of about 92 hour after storage in water ( at room temperature ) the opt treatment the contact angle remained low . after storage under air ( room temperature ) the contact angle remained low for about 2 hours . thus within this time frame sterol groups could be attached to the reactive groups a to form an air - stable lipid bilayer ( rbslb ). a similar stability experiment with pa ( polyactive ® 1000 / 70 / 30 ) showed a much lower stability of the reactive groups a ( aldehyde groups ) and reaction of the aldehyde groups with sterol groups preferably takes place within 5 minutes after the activation of the surface of the pa - object ( see table 1 ). large unilamellar vesicles ( luvs ) were prepared by extrusion ( 11 times ) of a solution of multi laminar vesicles ( mlv ) through 100nm polycarbonate membranes on an avanti polar lipids extruder . the mlv solution was a solution of 1 , 2 - dioleoyl - sn - glycero - 3 - phosphocholine ( dopc ) obtained from avanti polar lipids . mlvs of dopc were generated by vortexing a rehydrated lipid cake in fresh milliq ( 18mω ) at 1 mg / ml . the lipid cake was prepared by drying 99 . 8 mol % dopc and 0 . 2 mol % oregon green or texas red - 1 , 2 - dihexadecanoyl - sn - glycero - 3 - phosphoethanolamine ( dhpe , invitrogen ) from organic solvent . the cake was dried under a stream of nitrogen and left to dry under vacuum for 1 hour . opt modified polycaprolactone sheet according to example ii and opt modified and cholesterol modified polycaprolactone sheets according to example iii were treated with a diluted luv solution of 0 . 5 mg / ml in pbs . the sheets were incubated with the luv solution for 45 minutes above t m of the lipids used (− 20 ° for dopc ) to allow for vesicle adsorption and rupture to occur . optional , to further ensure high yield of ruptured vesicles a freezing step at − 80 ° c . was employed after the initial incubation . after extensive washing in 1 × phosphate buffered saline ( pbs , sigma ), the fluorescently labelled bilayer on pcl was achieved as shown by a fluorescence image of the pcl sheet . the thickness of the dopc layer formed on the object was 4 . 1 nm +/− 0 . 7 nm as determined by force spectroscopy . the dopc lipid bilayer formed according to example iva proved fluidic on the pcl support . the mobility was deduced by observing the diffusion occurring after a population of fluorescent lipids has been bleached , so - called recovery . in fig3 the bilayer consisted of dopc doped with 0 . 2 mol % of oregon green dhpe and was prepared using 100 nm luvs . a , fitted cslm frap recovery curve using a one - component fit , r 2 0 . 999207 . a diffusion coefficient of 1 . 016 μm 2 / s ± 0 . 012 with a mobile fraction of & gt ; 95 % was found . the roi , tot and bg regions had a ω of 24 μm during bleaching and acquisition . the inset shows the complete recovery profile during a single frap measurement using 600 iterations at 900 ms interval . epi - fluorescence images of b , pre bleach c , post bleach and d , after 15 minutes show recovery of fluorescence , scale bar 200 μm . here , the field diaphragm was closed to bleach a 130 μm spot on a single fiber to qualitatively assess later diffusion of the fluorescent layer . according to the method described above lipid bilayers were formed on pcl sheets that were treated with opt and thereafter incubated with an amine terminated cholesterol group for 1 hour , 2 hours or 3 hours respectively . it is shown by the results in table 2 below that by the opt treatment in combination with the incubation with the amine terminated cholesterol group an air - stable lipid bilayer ( rbslb ) can be formed with a mobile fraction of & gt ; 90 % as determined by frap analysis . when the incubation with the amine terminated cholesterol group lasts 3 hours it is shown that the mobile fraction of the air - stable lipid bilayer was reduced to about 50 %. on the untreated pcl sheet and on the pcl sheet that was only treated with opt an air - stable lipid bilayer was not formed . pcl films of 0 . 5 × 0 . 5 cm 2 ( sigma ) were modified on one side , while the other side remained unaltered , with a dopc lipid bilayer formed according to the process described in examples ii , ill and iva . these films were incubated with bovine serum albumin ( bsa , sigma ) modified with dylight 488 ( thermo scientific ) for 20 min . at room temperature in the dark . after the set incubation and protein desorption in sds solution for 1 hour the bsa - dylight488 content was quantified for determination of the non - fouling nature of the modified pcl films . the total protein adsorption decreased by about 50 % after application of the bilayer . it is expected that the reduction is due to the non - fouling nature of the zwitterionic lipid bilayer . since only half of the total surface area was treated , a high degree of protein resistance ( of about 100 %) can be deduced even after dehydration and rehydration of the sample i . e . 1 ×, 2 × or 3 times sequentially . one dehydration cycle was performed by removal of all the liquids above the object and let it dry for 30 min . afterwards pbs was added to rehydrate the lipid bilayer , all conducted at room temperature . bsa conjugated with dylight 488 was incubated with the substrates in pbs . the adsorbed protein was quantified with a plate reader after being desorbed in sds solution . the inset shows adsorption data of bsa in dmem , lacking fbs . relative protein adsorption is presented as mean ± sd ( n = 3 ) and compared using 1 - way anova with post - hoc tukey test , * p =& lt ; 0 . 05 . the bsa adsorption figures show that the attachment of the lipid bilayer to the pcl object is stable . even after rehydration and dehydration of the sample 3 times no amendment of the bsa adsorption occurred . further no fouling with the proteins out of the bsa occurs on the lipid bilayer . this means that the lipid bilayers will also protect the object against other forms of bio - fouling . to gain insight in the non - fouling behaviour of the bslbs , a protein adsorption assay was performed . here , fluorescently labelled bsa was prepared and used to quantify the amount of protein adsorbed to the samples surface . briefly , n - hydrocysuccinimide ( nhs ) activated dylight - 488 was incubated with bsa and purified using spin columns following the protocol provided by the manufacturer ( thermo scientific ). bslb modified pcl films of 0 . 5 × 0 . 5 cm 2 ( sigma ) were incubated with 50 μg / ml bsa conjugates in pbs for 20 min . subsequent washings using pbs ensured loosely bound protein to be removed . adsorbed protein was desorbed in sds solution for 1 h at room temperature and quantified using a plate reader ( victor , perkin - elmer ) and a standard curve . in the case of the dehydrated bslb the buffer was removed and the surface was exposed to air . subsequently , pbs buffer was added to rehydrate the bslb samples . data are presented in table 4 and show that upon formation of the bslb the amount of adsorbed protein is significantly reduced . kgg - peptides were synthesized using a microwave solid - phase peptide synthesizer ( oem ). the fluorenylmethyloxycarbonylchloride ( fmoc )- protected amino acids and the coupling reagents hydroxybenzotriazole ( hobt ) and o - benzotriazole - n , n , n ′, n ′- tetramethyl - uronium - hexafluoro - phosphate ( hbtu ) were obtained from multisyntech . rink - amide resin and hobt / hbtu coupling were used . standard manufacturers amino acid coupling methods were adopted . with exception that the first amino acid was coupled using an initial double coupling procedure . 3 . microwave step ; 35 watt , max t ˜ 40 ° c ., ˜ 40 sec 6 . microwave step , 35 watt , max t ˜ 79 ° c ., ˜ 3 min 11 . microwave step ; ser , asp , gly : 25 watt , max t ˜ 79 ° c ., ˜ 5 min 3 . microwave step ; , 35 watt , max t ˜ 40 ° c ., ˜ 40 sec . 6 . microwave step ; 35 watt , max t ˜ 79 ° c ., ˜ 3 min arg ; 0 watt , max t ˜ 79 ° c ., ˜ 30 min lys ; 25 watt , max t ˜ 79 ° c ., ˜ 5 min arg ; 25 watt , max t ˜ 79 ° c ., ˜ 5 min lys : 25 watt , max t ˜ 79 ° c ., ˜ 5 min the n - terminal kgg - r n was used to couple n - hydroxysuccinimide ( nhs ) activated palmitic acid . nhs - palmitate was prepared according to a literature procedure . 1 : 1 : 1 molar equivalents of palmitic acid ( sigma ), nhs ( sigma ) and n , n ′- dicyclohexylcarbondiimide ( dcc , sigma ) were stirred at 0 ° c . for 1 hr and left overnight at room temperature in thf . the reaction solution was filtered and the product was purified by means of recrystallization in hot methanol . the ir analysis showed for palmitic acid the c - h stretching at 2 , 912 & amp ; 2 , 848 cm − 1 of the alkane , the o — h and — c ═ o stretching at 2 , 500 - 3 , 300 cm − 1 and 1 , 700 cm − 1 of the acid . the nhs - palmitate showed peaks at : alkane , — c — h : 2 , 912 & amp ; 2 , 848 cm − 1 ; ester , — c ═ o : 1 , 821 cm − 1 and — c — o — n : 1 , 071 cm − 1 ; succinimide , sym . c ═ o : 1 , 784 cm − 1 , asym . c ═ o : 1 , 731 cm − 1 and asym . c — n — c : 1 , 212 cm — 1 . after completion of the peptide synthesis a final deprotection step was performed to yield a ‘ free ’ n - terminal amine , leaving the lysine side - group protected . on resin the peptide was reacted with 10 molar equivalents nhs - palmitate in dmf and a small amount of n , n - diisopropylethylamine ( dipea ). the nhs - palmitate was allowed to react for 5 hours . the resin was washed multiple times with dmf and dcm after that microwave cleavage using the microwave solid - phase peptide synthesizer ( cem ) in a tfa / tis / water 95 / 2 . 5 / 2 . 5 was performed according to manufactures instruction as described under example va . after diethyl ether precipitation the peptide conjugate was purified with hplc and lyophilized . hplc purification was performed using water and acetonitrile gradient supplemented with 0 . 1 % tfa . using es + the [ m + h ] + and [ m + h ] 2 + peaks could be found for the fibronectin derivatives using the lyophilized , purified ‘ monopal ’ peptides the coupling of a second nhs - palmitate to the ‘ free ’ amine of the lysine residue was performed . the reaction was conducted in dsmo / dipea in a 10 times molar excess of nhs - palmitate . the reaction was monitored using es + and stopped upon disappearance of the monopal peak , after 4 hours . the crude was washed several times with diethyl ether to remove unreacted nhs - palmitate . the dmso fraction was diluted with milliq and lyophilized . pcl membranes functionalized with two different lipid bilayers were used . the functionalized pcl membranes were obtained according to the process as described in example iva . to test the performance of the lipid bilayers palmitoylated rgd peptides were chosen as a model system for cell adhesion . here , the bilayer was contacted with a high concentration of peptide ( 10 mol %) and the effect of lipids lateral mobility on cell behavior was compared . in the figure the resulting cell size as well as cell area was deduced after two hours of incubation . the cell count decreased upon application of a bare dopc or dspc bilayer . however , upon doping with rgd peptides the cell count increased . when rge control peptides were chosen , cell adhesion was suppressed . moreover , for the gel state lipids ( dspc ) the cell area was significantly higher . immortalized mesenchymal stem cells ( imscs ) were seeded in basal media for two hours at a density of 5 , 000 cells per cm 2 and washed after 30 minutes to remove loosely adherent cells . to study the effect of lateral mobility more in detail imscs were cultured for a period of 1 week in adipogenic media ( to promote the formation of fat cells ) and in osteogenic media ( to promote the formation of bone cells , both fully supplemented . it has been described that fat cell differentiation is promoted on soft surfaces while bone differentiation on stiff supports . it is postulated that mobile ligands ( liquid bslb ) would approximate soft materials while immobile ligands ( gel bslb ) stiff ones . to assess osteogenesis alp was measured and corrected for dna content . moreover , prior to that a proliferation assay allowed us to get insight into the cell densities of the oil o red samples that were used to determine adipogenisis . it can be noted that the liquid state bslb promoted adipogenisis while the gel state bslb promoted osteogenesis .
a process for the preparation of an object , supporting a lipid bilayer , for use in tissue engineering including the steps of providing an object having a surface , treating the surface of the object with a plasma containing active oxygen to provide the surface of the object with reactive groups a , to provide the surface of the object with reactive groups a , covalently attaching a sterol group to the reactive groups a and contacting the object activated with sterol groups with a lipid solution to form a lipid bilayer .