Plasma Surface Engineering to Biofunctionalise Polymers for β-Cell Adhesion

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The research manuscript entitled “Plasma surface engineering to biofunctionalise polymers for β-cell adhesion”. In this study, authors have developed scaffolds-based implant device and modified /immobilized with ECM protein for better β-cell adhesion. In this process they used four different synthetic polymer candidate namely low density polyethylene (LDPE), polystyrene (PS), polyethersulfone (PES), and polysulfone (PSU). These polymeric-based scaffold implant were plasma treated to endow covalent attachment of laminin on their surface. I will recommend for publication after minor revision.

1. Introduction section should be rewritten, and authors should emphasize the rationale of selected polymers in the introduction. Why these polymers e., (LDPE), polystyrene (PS), polyethersulfone (PES), and polysulfone (PSU) have been chosen in this study? Author’s should this point in Introduction.
2. How plasma surface engineering is different from UV-photo-oxidation (Technologies 2021, 9, 36), and chemical surface engineering (e., NaOH treatment) of the synthetic polymers (ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2015, 7, 8088−8098) treatments? Please discuss in introduction section.
3. In figure 2 (B), and (C), authors should provide standard deviation (SD) as well as statistical analysis, if possible.
4. In Figure 3, it would be good for readers if authors provide substantial gap between UT and PIII spectrum in each graph.
5. In the manuscript authors write “Figure” (page 7, line 238) and “Fig” (page 7, line 235), please be consistent throughout the manuscript.
6. Figure 4, no need to provide y-axis data points, only arbitrary unit (a.u.) would be enough. Same with figure 5.

Author Response

We thank you for your comments and suggestions to improve our work. Could you please see the changes we made in our manuscript as below:

1. Introduction section should be rewritten, and authors should emphasize the rationale of selected polymers in the introduction. Why these polymers e., (LDPE), polystyrene (PS), polyethersulfone (PES), and polysulfone (PSU) have been chosen in this study? Author’s should this point in Introduction.

We chose these four polymers in our experimental design because we searched the market and found that they were the only polymers available as membranes and hollow tubes with suitably sized pores at the time we started our experiment. As this work is directed to support the development of capsules to protect insulin secreting cells implanted into a patient for the treatment of diabetes, we needed to ensure the polymers would be available as membranes with suitable pores. We have added one sentence on page 2, lines 72-74 to clarify this point.

2. How plasma surface engineering is different from UV-photo-oxidation (Technologies 2021, 9, 36), and chemical surface engineering (e., NaOH treatment) of the synthetic polymers (ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2015, 7, 8088−8098) treatments? Please discuss in introduction section.

We have added sentences on page 2, lines 50-52, 62-64 and 67-70 with references to compare PIII with other relevant techniques.

3. In figure 2 (B), and (C), authors should provide standard deviation (SD) as well as statistical analysis, if possible.

We have added standard deviation error bars on the graphs 2B and 2C.

4. In Figure 3, it would be good for readers if authors provide substantial gap between UT and PIII spectrum in each graph.

All PIII spectra were moved up to separate them from the UT spectra in Figure 3.

5. In the manuscript authors write “Figure” (page 7, line 238) and “Fig” (page 7, line 235), please be consistent throughout the manuscript.

The “Fig” on page 9, line 248 has been replaced by “Figure”.

6. Figure 4, no need to provide y-axis data points, only arbitrary unit (a.u.) would be enough. Same with figure 5.

We have changed the y-axis titles in Figure 4 and 5 to “Intensity, counts/s“ to make it consistent with the x-axis titles and as it contains more information than using arbitrary unit.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article “Plasma surface engineering to biofunctionalize polymers for b-cell adhesion” is extremely detailed, with a lot of experimental work. From scientific point of view, the topic of the manuscript is very interesting focusing on the top concerns of the medical scientific community. The manuscript describes and discusses very well the experiments and the results.

Perhaps a brief discussion is needed regarding the results obtained with those provided by other published research. A comparison between the technique used in this manuscript and other techniques used by other researchers to functionalize the surface of some polymers is necessary.

Also, from each study maximum information was extracted and the relevant conclusions were drawn. In conclusion, I recommend the paper publication in Coatings journal.

Author Response

We thank you for your nice comment about our work. We agree that there are still missing information about comparable technologies in the introduction and comparison with other works in discussion.

A comparison between PIII and other techniques has been added in the introduction. See lines 50-52, 62-64 and 67-70 on page 2.

Additionally, further discussion in relation to the results obtained in the paper has been added on page 11 lines 284-291 and page 15, lines 385-388.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx