Protein adsorption on hydroxyapatite nanosensors with different crystal sizes studied in situ by a quartz crystal microbalance with the dissipation method

Hydroxyapatite (HAp) nanocrystals with different crystal sizes were deposited by the electrophoretic deposition method on the gold surface of a quartz crystal microbalance with a dissipation probe. The nanosensors formed this way were used to elucidate the adsorption mechanism of proteins with a similar pI value. The crystal sizes and the area of the a-plane affected only the adsorption amount of human serum albumin, but not that of bovine plasma fibrinogen. The viscoelastic property, ΔD/Δf, of each absorbed layer on the nanosensors was almost constant. The protein adsorption mechanism can be explained as follows: the dissociated carboxyl groups (negative charge) of albumin were interacted with calcium ions and the hydrated amine groups (positive charge) at the αC domain of fibrinogen were with phosphate ions on the HAp surface.