Highlights
A ‘dual active templating’ strategy is firstly reported, using cationic and anionic bactericidal agents as co-templates for the preparation of antibacterial silica nanocomposite with spiky nanotopography.
The spiky nanocomposite exhibited enhanced antibacterial and biofilm inhibition performance, compared to pure antimicrobial cationic agent templated smooth silica nanocomposite.
Abstract
Silica-based materials are usually used as delivery systems for antibacterial applications. In rare cases, bactericidal cationic surfactant templated silica composites have been reported as antimicrobial agents. However, their antibacterial efficacy is limited due to limited control in content and structure. Herein, we report a “dual active templating” strategy in the design of nanostructured silica composites with intrinsic antibacterial performance. This strategy uses cationic and anionic structural directing agents as dual templates, both with active antibacterial property. The cationic-anionic dual active templating strategy further contributes to antibacterial nanocomposites with a spiky surface. With controllable release of dual active antibacterial agents, the spiky nanocomposite displays enhanced anti-microbial and anti-biofilm properties toward
Staphylococcus epidermidis
. These findings pave a new avenue toward the designed synthesis of novel antibacterial nanocomposites with improved performance for diverse antibacterial applications.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40820-022-00826-4.
In the present study, discarded pruned tea branch was used to prepare a new biochar, and the physicochemical properties and adsorption characteristics were investigated by characterization and batch experiments.
Infectious diseases caused by bacteria have led to a great threat to public health. With the significant advances in nanotechnology in recent decades, nanomaterials have emerged as a powerful tool to boost antibacterial performance due to either intrinsic bactericidal properties or by enhancing the delivery efficiency of antibiotics for effective pathogen killing. Vancomycin, as one of the most widely employed antimicrobial peptides, has a potent bactericidal activity, but at the same time shows a limited bioavailability. Silver nanoparticles have also been extensively explored and were found to have a well-recognized antibacterial activity and limited resistance potential; however, how to prevent nanosized Ag particles from aggregation in biological conditions is challenging. In this study, we aimed to combine the advantages of both vancomycin and nano-Ag for enhanced bacterial killing, where both antibacterial agents were successfully loaded onto a silica nanoparticle with a pollen-like morphology. The morphology of nano-Ag-decorated silica nanopollens was characterized using transmission electron microscopy and elemental mapping through energy dispersive spectroscopy. Silver nanoparticles with a size of 10–25 nm were observed as well-distributed on the surface of silica nanoparticles of around 200 nm. The unique design of a spiky morphology of silica nano-carriers promoted the adhesion of nanoparticles towards bacterial surfaces to promote localized drug release for bacterial killing, where the bacterial damage was visualized through scanning electron microscopy. Enhanced bactericidal activity was demonstrated through this co-delivery of vancomycin and nano-Ag, decreasing the minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) towards E. coli and S. epidermidis down to 15 and 10 µg/mL. This study provides an efficient antimicrobial nano-strategy to address potential bacterial infections.
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