Development of Protein-Resistant Hydrogels via Surface Modification with Dendritic PEGs

This report describes the synthesis and characterization of a series of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (pHEMA)-based hydrogel lenses coated with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) chains. We synthesized a novel dendritic tribranched PEG chain, which provides a densely packed PEG coating on the hydrogel surface, to investigate whether a branched architecture leads to reduced protein adsorption. The protein adsorption, water content, optical transparency, and surface hydrophilicity properties of the hydrogels were investigated. The PEG-coated hydrogels showed 90% transmittance and improved surface hydrophilicity. In particular, the amount of protein adsorbed on the dendritic PEG-coated hydrogels decreased significantly relative to the amounts adsorbed onto the surfaces of unmodified and linear PEG-coated hydrogels. This new example of dendritic PEG-coated hydrogels is believed to have potential for future biomedical and ophthalmic applications because of their biocompatibility and antifouling properties.