Abstract
The widespread use of nanoparticles (NPs) in medical devices has opened a new scenario in the treatment and prevention of many diseases and infections owing to unique physico-chemical properties of NPs. In this way, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are known to have a strong antimicrobial activity, even at low concentrations, due to their ability to selectively destroy cellular membranes. In particular, in the field of dental medicine, the use of AgNPs in different kinds of dental prosthesis matrixes could be a fundamental tool in immunodepressed patients that suffer of different oral infections. Candida albicans (C. albicans), an opportunistic pathogenic yeast with high colonization ability, is one of the causative agents of oral cavity infection. In our work, we added monodispersed citrate-capping AgNPs with a size of 20 nm at two concentrations (3 wt% and 3.5 wt%) in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), the common resin used to develop dental prostheses. After AgNPs characterization, we evaluated the topographical modification of PMMA and PMMA with the addition of AgNPs by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM), showing the reduction of surface roughness. The C. albicans colonization on PMMA surfaces was assessed by the Miles and Misra technique as well as by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) at 24 h and 48 h with encouraging results on the reduction of yeast viability after AgNPs exposure.
Highlights
In the last century, several materials have been employed in dental and mandibular prosthetic reconstructions
The morphology of AgNPs were characterized by Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM): They exhibited a spherical size of 20 ± 3 nm (Figure 1a), as showed on size distribution graph performed on 270 AgNPs (Figure 1b)
The size of NPs was confirmed by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) measurements: The hydrodynamic radius was compatible with the mean size values noticed in TEM acquisitions (19 ± 2) nm (Figure 1c)
Summary
Several materials have been employed in dental and mandibular prosthetic reconstructions. In order to eradicate C. albicans infections, several protocols for the periodic chemical cleaning of prostheses have been proposed; these solutions are not definitive and, in addition, the treatment repetition causes damage to prosthesis surfaces, eventually compromising the longevity of implants [9,10,11,12,13]. Moving from these observations, structural modifications of PMMA matrices at nanoscale could be a possible strategy to improve their performance; in particular, resin implementation with NPs offers many advantages. Metal NPs, such as gold NPs (AuNPs) or titanium dioxide NPs (TiO2NPs), as well as mesoporous silica NPs (MSN), have been added to different kinds of biomaterials, such as PMMA-based matrices [14]
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