Understanding surface-adsorption of proteins: the Vroman effect

It is now well accepted that cellular responses to materials in a biological medium reflect greatly the adsorbed biomolecular layer, rather than the material itself. Here, we study by molecular dynamic simulations the competitive protein adsorption on a surface (Vroman effect), i.e. the non-monotonic behavior of the amount of protein adsorbed on a surface in contact with plasma as a function of contact time and plasma concentration. We find a complex behavior, with regimes during which small and large proteins are not necessarily competing between them, but are both competing with others in solution. We show how the effect can be understood, controlled and inverted.