Polyglycerol dendrimers immobilized on radiation grafted poly-HEMA hydrogels: Surface chemistry characterization and cell adhesion

•Radiation-grafted PHEMA hydrogels have been obtained by simultaneous gamma-irradiation of LDPE and HEMA monomer.•PGLD dendrimer was immobilized onto PHEMA for application in tissue engineering.•The microstructural characterization of LDPE-g-PHEMA-i-PGLD by RMN, XPS, AFM and MALDI-TOF are made.•Measurements of water uptake and contact angle of LDPE-g-PHEMA are compared to those of LDPE-g-PHEMA-i-PGLD.•The MC3T-E1 osteoblast cell adhesion and growth on LDPE-g-PHEMA-i-PGLD were studied.

Radiation induced grafting of poly(2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate) (PHEMA) on low density polyethylene (LDPE) films and subsequent immobilization of poly(glycerol) dendrimer (PGLD) has been performed with the aim to improve cell adhesion and proliferation on the surface of the polymer, in order to enhance their properties for bone tissue engineering scaffolding applications. Radiation grafting of PHEMA onto LDPE was promoted by γ-ray radiation. The covalent immobilization of PGLD on LDPE-g-PHEMA surface was performed by using a dicyclohexyl carbodiimide (DCC)/N,N-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP) method. The occurrence of grafting polymerization of PHEMA and further immobilization of PGLD was quantitatively confirmed by photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and fluorescence, respectively. The LDPE-g-PHEMA surface topography after PGLD coupling was studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The hydrophilicity of the LDPE-g-PHEMA film was remarkably improved compared to that of the ungrafted LDPE. The core level XPS ESCA spectrum of PHEMA-grafted LDPE showed two strong peaks at 286.6 eV (from hydroxyl groups and ester groups) and 289.1 eV (from ester groups) due to PHEMA brushes grafted onto LDPE surfaces. The results from the cell adhesion studies show that MCT3-E1 cells tended to spread more slowly on the LDPE-g-PHEMA than on the LDPE-g-PHEMA-i-PGLD.