Abstract

In the last years, there has been an increasing interest to the elaboration of new biocompatible and biodegradable medical polymers meant to contact the living body milieu. Amine-based biopolymer films with intrinsic biological activity have a significant potential for the synthesis of contemporaneous materials intended for surgery and tissue engineering. Our investigation is aimed to perform a non-invasive assessment of the structural characteristics and biological properties of biodegradable polymeric composites with anti-inflammatory activity, by means of ultra-high resolution laser interferometric microscopy.

Various samples of biodegradable polymers were studied with a phase-modulation laser interferometric microscope MIM-340 (Yekaterinburg, Russia) at a wavelength of 532 nm and magnification of x 20, with superficial plane resolution of up to 15 nm, vertical resolution of 0,1 nm and possibility to control the relief depth of up to 600 nm.

We have performed an in vitro non-invasive assessment of the impact of the structure, composition and modification conditions of the obtained biopolymer composites on the viability, adhesive properties and functional activity of the living blood cells (neutrophils, lymphocytes, and platelets). We propose a number of densitometry criteria to identify the most promising biopolymer samples for the development of medical products with characteristics maximally resembling the physiological ones.

© 2019 SPIE/OSA