Abstract:
Antimicrobial materials are essential in many medical applications. In the recent years a lot of research has been dedicated to nitric oxide-releasing nanomaterials and in particular mesoporous particles in order to improve the storage and delivery performances of nitric oxide carriers for a wide range of applications due to their high surface area-to-volume ratio and easy penetration. In this report the principles underlying in this process are first reported with particular attention towards the mesoporous silica nanoparticles. Next, the process dependence on such parameters as size, shape, and porosity of the silica nanoparticles, and then the surface functionalization with NO donors were also taken into consideration. Porous scaffolds hold great potential for wound healing and skin tissue engineering. Over the past couple of decades, nanoparticles (e.g. silica, gold, and silver nanoparticles) have been extensively explored in wound-healing applications as efficient antimicrobial agents and the use of these nanoparticles has raised concerns. Therefore, there is a real need for the development of scaffolds with controlled release of different antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory agents such as nitric oxide. In this project, we investigate the efficacy of silica nanoparticle in releasing the nitric oxide in the effective concentration for anti-bacterial effects. It is supposed that silica nanoparticles as biocompatible scaffolds, enable the incorporation of nitric oxide with programmable release. This approach will allow the creation of customised antimicrobial structures for a broad range of tissue engineering applications, with particular emphasis in wound-healing applications. The incorporation of a uniform, continuous layers of nanoparticles/antimicrobial (NO@Si) agents will be verified by FTIR analysis. Scanning Electron microscopy will be used to investigate morphological features of the particles. The antimicrobial efficacy of the antimicrobial scaffolds against a range of gram positive and gram negative bacterial (e.g. Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas Aeruginosa) will be determined on broad range of mentioned bacteria isolates. Cytotoxicity analyses of the antimicrobial scaffolds toward dermal fibroblasts will be performed using MTT assay of cell viability and proliferation.
