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

Abstract

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 Staphylococcus epidermidis (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.

Study of 1D and 2D Carbon Nanomaterial in Alginate Films

“…Therefore, in spite of their different chemical nature, both one-dimensional hydrophobic CNFs and two-dimensional hydrophilic GO nanosheets remain embedded in the alginate polymer matrix and, therefore, not exposed to enhance cell adhesion on the composite surface, in good agreement with the FESEM observations (see Figure 1). Nonetheless, these composite films show similar promising applications to those of calcium alginate films with enhanced physical and antibacterial properties [28][29][30]34,35]. Therefore, these alginate/CNFs and alginate/GO composite films are very promising for a broad range of bioengineering and biomedical applications.…”

“…The addition of these CNMs into alginate films can produce a significant enhancement of mechanical performance, wettability, water diffusion and antibacterial activity [28][29][30]34,35]. Herein, we report the effect of incorporating these CNMs into alginate films on cytotoxicity and cell adhesion.…”

“…Thus, the mechanical properties of these polymer networks can be improved following a broad range of established reinforcing methods developed for polymers: reinforcement by interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) [21], rise of crosslinking density [22,23], addition of nanofibers [24,25], plasma polymerization methods [26,27] and more recently, by the incorporation of low contents (up to 1% w/w) of CNMs such as 1D CNFs or 2D GO nanosheets [28][29][30][31][32][33]. In addition, this nanotechnological approach was able to enhance other physical and biological properties of calcium alginate films such as wettability, water diffusion [29,30] and antibacterial activity against the life-threatening methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis [34,35]. Nevertheless, no studies of cell adhesion on calcium alginate/CNFs or calcium alginate/GO films have been reported so far in literature.…”

Acrylic-Based Materials for Biomedical and Bioengineering Applications

“…Polymer nanocomposites have significantly influenced the field of biomedicine. In this regard, graphenebased nanocomposites have been reported to enhance the physical and biological properties of a wide range of polymers of different chemical natures [24,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53]. Graphene (GN) is a 2D monolayer of sp 2 -bonded carbon atoms [54] very promising in a wide range of industrial fields due to its outstanding electrical and thermal properties [55,56] and high mechanical performance [57].…”

<em>Carbon nanofibers: alternative weapons against multidrug-resistant pathogens</em>

“…The CNFs used in this work were characterized by Raman spectroscopy and observed by high-resolution transmission electron with energy-disperse X-ray spectroscopy. (Read complete study in detail in reference [2]) MOL2NET, 2019, 5, ISSN: 2624-5078 2 http://sciforum.net/conference/mol2net-05…”