Polystyrene-polyamino acid graft copolymer was newly synthesized for the development of a specific cell separator. This copolymer was confirmed to have surface micro-domains of polyamino acid similar to the cell membrane. Adhesion behavior of rat mesenteric Lymph-node lymphocytes on graft copolymers was studied. Morphological change of lymphocytes adherent to the graft copolymers was less than that of cells adherent to homo-polymers, polystyrene and homopolyamino acid, probably due to the micro-domain structure of graft copolymers. Separation of T cell from B cell was examined using these copolymers in the absence of serum proteins. A selectivity was found to increase with the increase of the polyamino acid content, suggesting that synthetic polyamino acids have the ability to separate T cell from B cell without serum proteins. From these results, our newly developed graft copolymer having polyamino acid side chains is thought to be a promising material for the specific cell separator.
