Preparation of new amphiphilic macroporous nonwoven polymeric adsorbents aimed for selective removal of low-density lipoprotein from plasma.

Abstract

In the present work, new amphiphilic macroporous polymeric adsorbent (AMPA) membranes for LDL-apheresis were prepared by (60)Co γ-ray irradiation-induced grafting copolymerization of polypropylene (PP) nonwoven fabric with acrylic acid, followed by bonding cholesterol through linkers of different length. The new AMPA membranes were characterized by attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope (SEM), and contact angle microscopy. Static adsorption and hemo-perfusion tests show these new adsorbents could efficiently remove LDL from human plasma. Meanwhile, the AMPA displayed good adsorption capacity for triglyceride (TG) as well. The static adsorption performance of the AMPA membranes depends on the length of linker. In addition, a balance between the amount of bonded cholesterol and remaining carboxyl group was found necessary to reach the optimal adsorption performance. The best result was achieved by the AMPA membrane PA15C6-3, by which 62.8 ± 3.8 μg of LDL-C, 16.5 ± 0.71 μg of HDL-C, 132.4 ± 3.0 μg of TG are removed from human plasma per square centimeter.