Liquid crystal delivery of ciprofloxacin to treat infections of the female reproductive tract

Abstract

Infections of the female reproductive tract are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in humans, requiring significant investment to sustain treatment and representing a major challenge to health. The increasing prevalence of bacterial resistance, and an almost complete absence of new antibiotic therapies for the past five decades, mean there is a desperate need for novel approaches to the treatment of bacterial infections. Within the present study, we demonstrate the effective ex vivo treatment of bacterial infection of the female reproductive tract using a controlled-release, liquid crystal-based platform. Liquid crystal encapsulation of ciprofloxacin significantly enhanced its bactericidal efficacy and reduced cell toxicity. Liquid crystal structures are low-cost, simple to manufacture and provide a sustained-release profile of encapsulated ciprofloxacin. Treatment of Escherichia coli infected reproductive tract epithelial cells and whole organ cultures with liquid crystal encapsulated ciprofloxacin proved to be an effective strategy for reducing bacterial load and reproductive tract inflammatory responses to infection. These data suggest that such an approach could provide an efficacious treatment modality for enhancing the effectiveness of current antibiotic therapies. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10544-019-0385-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Recent Advances in Nanosystems and Strategies for Vaginal Delivery of Antimicrobials

“…Liquid crystals have a malleable structure that could be controlled to allow both sustained drug release and ease of administration. Recently, some authors (2019) evaluated the controlled delivery into cells of ciprofloxacin encapsulated in liquid crystals, demonstrating that they significantly enhance bacterial killing compared to free drug formulation and highlighting their potential use for the treatment of FRT infections and/or topical administration for the upper infections [ 40 ].…”

Nanotechnological strategies for systemic microbial infections treatment: A review

“… Pisano et al (2019) developed a liquid crystal platform with the objective of controlled release of ciprofloxacin for the treatment of infections of the female reproductive tract. Second, the authors the liquid crystal platform containing ciprofloxacin, have increased bactericidal efficacy and reduced cellular toxicity.…”