Covalent Mucin Coatings Form Stable Anti-Biofouling Layers on a Broad Range of Medical Polymer Materials

Approximately 10% of all hospital patients contract infections from temporary clinical implants such as urinal and vascular catheters or tracheal tubes. The ensuing complications reach from patient inconvenience and tissue inflammation to severe, life threatening complications such as pneumonia or bacteremia. All these device-associated nosocomial infections have the same origin: biofouling, i.e., the unwanted deposition of proteins, bacteria, and cells onto the device. To date, most strategies to overcome these problems are device specific, which results in high development efforts and costs. Here, it is demonstrated how one and the same coupling mechanism can be used to create a covalent antifouling coating employing mucin glycoproteins on multiple materials: with this method, a stable mucin layer can be generated on a broad range of polymer materials which are frequently used in medical engineering. It is shown that the mucin coating exhibits excellent stability against mechanical, thermal, and chemical challenges and reduces protein adsorption as well as prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell adhesion. Thus, the coating mechanism described here introduces a promising strategy to overcome biofouling issues on a broad range of medical devices.