Tailored Silica-Antibiotic Nanoparticles: Overcoming Bacterial Resistance with Low Cytotoxicity

Author(s)

Capeletti, Larissa Brentano ^{[1, 2]} ; de Oliveira, Luciane Franca ^[2] ; Goncalves, Kaliandra de Almeida ^[3] ; Affonso de Oiveira, Jessica Fernanda ^{[4, 2]} ; Saito, Angela ^[3] ; Kobarg, Joerg ^[3] ; Zimnoch dos Santos, Joao Henrique ^[1] ; Cardoso, Mateus Borba ^{[4, 2]}

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Fed Rio Grande do Sul, BR-91501970 Porto Alegre, RS - Brazil

^[2] LNLS, BR-13083970 Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[3] LNBio Lab Nacl Biociencias, BR-13083970 Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[4] Univ Estadual Campinas, Inst Quim, BR-13083970 Campinas, SP - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Langmuir; v. 30, n. 25, p. 7456-7464, JUL 1 2014.
• Web of Science Citations: 36

Abstract

New and more aggressive antibiotic resistant bacteria arise at an alarming rate and represent an ever-growing challenge to global health care systems. Consequently, the development of new antimicrobial agents is required to overcome the inefficiency of conventional antibiotics and bypass treatment limitations related to these pathologies. In this study, we present a synthesis protocol, which was able to entrap tetracycline antibiotic into silica nanospheres. Bactericidal efficacy of these structures was tested against bacteria that were susceptible and resistant to antibiotics. For nonresistant bacteria, our composite had bactericidal efficiency comparable to that of free-tetracycline. On the other hand, the synthesized composites were able to avoid bacterial growth of resistant bacteria while free-tetracycline has shown no significant bactericidal effect. Finally, we have investigated the cytotoxicity of these nanoparticles against mammalian cells to check any possible poisoning effect. It was found that these nanospheres are not apoptosis-inducers and only a reduction on the cell replication rate was seen when compared to the control without nanoparticles. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 11/21954-7 - Functionalization of composite nanoparticles for biomedical applications
• Grantee: Mateus Borba Cardoso
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants