Carbon Nanofibers in Pure Form and in Calcium Alginate Composites Films: New Cost-Effective Antibacterial Biomaterials against the Life-Threatening Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis

Due to the current global health problem of antibiotic resistant recently announced by the World Health Organization, there is an urgent necessity of looking for new alternative antibacterial materials able to treat and impede multidrug-resistant infections which are cost-effective and non-toxic for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polymers 2019-03, Vol.11 (3), p.453
Main Authors: Salesa, Beatriz, Martí, Miguel, Frígols, Belén, Serrano-Aroca, Ángel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antibacterial materials
Antibiotics
Antimicrobial agents
Bacteria
Biocompatibility
Biomedical materials
Calcium alginate
Carbon fibers
Chloride
Chromatography
Composite materials
Cytotoxicity
Drug resistance
Electric contacts
Electric properties
Graphene
Hydrogels
Infections
Multidrug resistant organisms
Nanofibers
Nanomaterials
NMR
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Pathogens
Peptides
Production costs
Public health
Raman spectroscopy
Sodium
Toxicity
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Summary:Due to the current global health problem of antibiotic resistant recently announced by the World Health Organization, there is an urgent necessity of looking for new alternative antibacterial materials able to treat and impede multidrug-resistant infections which are cost-effective and non-toxic for human beings. In this regard, carbon nanofibers (CNFs) possess currently much lower cost than other carbon nanomaterials, such as graphene oxide, and exhibit excellent chemical, mechanical and electric properties. Furthermore, here, the first report on the antibacterial activity of CNFs was demonstrated. Thus, these nanomaterials, in pure form or incorporated in a minuscule amount into calcium alginate composite films to reduce production costs as much as possible, showed to be new weapons against a globally spreading multidrug-resistant pathogen, the methicillin-resistant (MRSE). This Gram-positive bacterium is becoming one of the most dangerous pathogens, due to its abundance on skin. In this study, these hollow filamentous materials, in direct contact with cells and loaded in the low-cost calcium alginate composite films, showed no cytotoxicity for human keratinocyte HaCaT cells, which render them very promising for biomedical applications. The CNFs used in this work were characterized by Raman spectroscopy and observed by high-resolution transmission electron with energy-disperse X-ray spectroscopy.
ISSN:2073-4360
2073-4360
DOI:10.3390/polym11030453