New antibacterial hydrogels based on sodium alginate

• Published in: International journal of biological macromolecules 2023-09, Vol.248, p.125872-125872, Article 125872
• Main Authors: El-Sayed, Naglaa Salem, Hashem, Amr H., Khattab, Tawfik A., Kamel, Samir
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 9-Aminoacridine; Alginate; Antibacterial hydrogels; Cytocompatibility; Kanamycin
• ISSN: 0141-8130; 1879-0003
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.125872

Nowadays, the combined knowledge and experience in biomedical research and material sciences results in the innovation of smart materials that could efficiently overcome the problems of microbial contaminations. Herein, a new drug delivery platform prepared by grafting sodium alginate with β-carboxyethyl acrylate and acrylamide was described and characterized. 9-Aminoacridine (9-AA), and kanamycin sulfate (KS) were separately loaded into the hydrogel in situ during graft polymerization. The grafting efficiency for the resulting hydrogels was 70.01–78.08 %. The chemical structure of the hydrogels, thermogravimetric analysis, and morphological features were investigated. The swelling study revealed that the hydrogel without drugs achieved a superior swelling rate compared to drug-loaded hydrogels. The hydrogel tuned the drug-release rate in a pH-dependent manner. Furthermore, the antibacterial study suggested that the hydrogels encapsulating 9-AA (88.6 %) or KS (89.3 %) exhibited comparable antibacterial activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains. Finally, the cytocompatibility study conducted on normal lung cell line (Vero cells) demonstrated neglectable to tolerable toxicity for the drug-loaded hydrogel. More interestingly, the cell viability for the blank hydrogel was 92.5 %, implying its suitability for biomedical applications.