Polydopamine as an adhesive coating for open tubular capillary electrochromatography

Polydopamine (PolyD) coating was used as an adhesive layer in the preparation of biological stationary phases for open tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC). The influence of coating solution freshness, coating time, temperature and dopamine hydrochloride concentration on the PolyD layer formation was studied. The performance of the polyD coating was monitored by measuring the electro-osmotic flow in coated capillaries. Following polyD coating of the capillary, secondary layer material (e.g. cell membrane solutions, phospholipid mixtures or mitochondria) was inserted into the capillary for at least 1 h. The performance of these double-coated capillaries (a polyD layer +a biological material layer) was compared with capillaries containing the respective biological material directly attached to the capillary wall. The study reveals that the presence of polyD layer in fused silica capillaries improves the performance of lipid and membrane fragment coatings in capillaries. At the same time, the thickness of the polyD layer does not have marked impact on the secondary coatings. Analysis with test analytes demonstrated that double-coated capillaries can be applied to study membrane-drug interactions.