Abstract
Severe bacterial and fungal infections have become a major clinical and public health concern. Nowadays, additional efforts are needed to develop effective antimicrobial materials that are not harmful to human cells. This work describes the synthesis and characterization of chitosan-ascorbic acid-silver nanocomposites as films exhibiting high antimicrobial activity and non-cytotoxicity towards human cells. The reductive and stabilizing activity of both the biocompatible polymer chitosan and ascorbic acid were used in the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). Herein, we propose an improved composite synthesis based on medium average molecular weight chitosan with a high deacetylation degree, that together with ascorbic acid gave films with a uniform distribution of small AgNPs (<10 nm) exhibiting high antimicrobial activity against biofilm forming bacterial and fungal strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Candida albicans. At the same time, the resulting solid nanocomposites showed, at the same doses, reduced or totally excluded cytotoxicity on mammalian somatic and tumoral cells. Data obtained in the present study suggest that adequately designed chitosan-silver nanocomposites are powerful and promising materials for reducing pathogenic microorganism-associated infections without harmful effects towards mammalian cells.
Highlights
The increase of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and fungi is a rising concern worldwide
We have presented an insightful study on chitosan-based silver nanoparticles synthesis with a strong emphasis laid on the in uence of the polymer molecular weight and deacetylation degree on the resulting properties of AgNPs and composites and their antibacterial action.[3]
The silver nanoparticle synthesis based on chitosan (CS) serving as both, reducing and stabilizing agent, developed in our previous studies,[3] has been here utilized for a further synthetic pathway improvement
Summary
The increase of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and fungi is a rising concern worldwide. The extensive and routine use of rst-line antimicrobials in medicine, agriculture, and farming over the last few decades has led a major threat for clinical practice. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized antibiotic resistance as one of the three major threats to global health and mankind.[1] Several resistance mechanisms, such as enzymes destroying antibiotics or bio lm formation, have emerged, making some of the antimicrobials virtually ineffective. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens the effective treatment of a wide range of infections which are able to spread, imposing a huge cost for healthcare systems. Multidrug-resistant (MDR) strain-, tuberculosis- (TB) or methicillin-resistant
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