The Effect of Co-Delivery of Oxygen and Antibacterial Drug Gentamicin From Alginate-Based Nanocomposite Hydrogels on Bacterial Apoptosis and Cell Viability

Abstract

There is a need to develop multifunctional biomaterials that can deliver oxygen and antibacterial drugs together for effective wound healing applications. Here, we report a novel biomaterial capable of co-delivering O2 and the antibacterial drug Gentamicin (GEN) for a period of 7 and 15 days, respectively. This biomaterial is fabricated by the synthesis of perfluorocarbon-based periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMOF) and the loading of its pores with GEN (GENPMOF). The synthesized GENPMOF is incorporated in alginate hydrogel to obtain Alg-GENPMOF with O2 and GEN co-delivery ability. Our results show that PMOF and GENPMOF have concentration-dependent toxicity on both Gram-negative E. coli and Gram-positive S. aureus bacteria. The most effective concentration of PMOF and GENPMOF (0.5 mg/mL) show little toxic effect for fibroblast cells. On the other hand, Alg-PMOF and Alg-GENPMOF prepared using this concentration require a long incubation time with E. coli to induce apoptosis. However, an incubation period of 1 day is sufficient to inhibit the growth of S. Aureus. Furthermore, Alg-PMOF and Alg-GENPMOF increase fibroblast cell viability under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions while slightly decreasing cancerous Malme-3M cell viability within 5 days of incubation.