Background: The adsorption of salivary pellicle proteins onto the material surface is key for denture plaque formation.
Objective: We aimed to investigate the adsorption of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and mucin (MCN) onto denture base metal materials using a 27-MHz quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) method.
Methods: A gold (Au), titanium (Ti), and cobalt chromium alloy (Co-Cr) sensors were employed for QCM measurements. Adsorbed amounts of BSA or MCN were calculated by observing the frequency decrease, and the apparent reaction rate, kobs, was obtained by the curve fitting of the frequency shift against the adsorption time.
Results: The adsorbed amounts of BSA on Ti were significantly lower than those on Au and Co-Cr. For MCN adsorption, Au showed significantly greater amounts of adsorption than Co-Cr. The kobs of Ti for BSA adsorption was significantly smaller than for the Co-Cr. The kobs of Ti, and Co-Cr for MCN adsorption were significantly smaller than for the Au. A clear correlation was not determined between adsorbed amounts of BSA or MCN onto each sensor and the surface topography or contact angles.
Conclusions: The difference of denture base metals and the difference of salivary proteins influences the adsorption behavior of salivary proteins.
Keywords: QCM; bovine serum albumin; denture base metal; denture plaque; mucin; salivary protein.