Benbow, N.L.Karpiniec, S.Krasowska, M.Beattie, D.A.2025-12-182025-12-182020Marine Drugs, 2020; 18(11)1660-33971660-3397https://hdl.handle.net/11541.2/145238Data source: Supplementary material, https://www.mdpi.com/1660-3397/18/11/531/s1Biopolymer polyelectrolyte multilayers are a commonly studied soft matter system for wound healing applications due to the biocompatibility and beneficial properties of naturally occurring polyelectrolytes. In this work, a popular biopolymer, chitosan, was combined with the lesser known polysaccharide, fucoidan, to create a multilayer film capable of sequestering growth factor for later release. Fucoidan has been shown to act as a heparin-mimic due to similarities in the structure of the two molecules, however, the binding of fibroblast growth factor-2 to fucoidan has not been demonstrated in a multilayer system. This study assesses the ability of fucoidan to bind fibroblast growth factor-2 within a fucoidan/chitosan polyelectrolyte multilayer structure using attenuated total internal reflectance infrared spectroscopy and quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring. The fibroblast growth factor-2 was sequestered into the polyelectrolyte multilayer as a cationic layer in the uppermost layers of the film structure. In addition, the diffusion of fibroblast growth factor-2 into the multilayer has been assessed.enCopyright 2020 The Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)BiopolymersChitosanPolysaccharidesFibroblast Growth Factor 2Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform InfraredPolyelectrolytesJournal article10.3390/md181105312-s2.0-85094817302Krasowska, M. [0000-0003-0309-1772]