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In-vitro anticancer and antimicrobial activities of PLGA/silver nanofiber composites prepared by electrospinning

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Abstract

In the present work, a series of 0, 1 and 7 wt% silver nano-particles (Ag NPs) incorporated poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) nano-fibers were synthesized by the electrospinning process. The PLGA/Ag nano-fibers sheets were characterized using SEM, TEM and DSC analyses. The three synthesized PLGA/silver nano-fiber composites were screened for anticancer activity against liver cancer cell line using MTT and LDH assays. The anticancer activity of PLGA nano-fibers showed a remarkable improvement due to increasing the concentration of the Ag NPs. In addition to the given result, PLGA nano-fibers did not show any cytotoxic effect. However, PLGA nano-fibers that contain 1 % nano silver showed anticancer activity of 8.8 %, through increasing the concentration of the nano silver to 7 % onto PLGA nano-fibers, the anticancer activity was enhanced to a 67.6 %. Furthermore, the antibacterial activities of these three nano-fibers, against the five bacteria strains namely; E.coli o157:H7 ATCC 51659, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 13565, Bacillus cereus EMCC 1080, Listeria monocytogenes EMCC 1875 and Salmonella typhimurium ATCC25566 using the disc diffusion method, were evaluated. Sample with an enhanced inhibitory effect was PLGA/Ag NPs (7 %) which inhibited all strains (inhibition zone diameter 10 mm); PLGA/Ag NPs (1 %) sample inhibited only one strain (B. cereus) with zone diameter 8 mm. The PLGA nano-fiber sample has not shown any antimicrobial activity. Based on the anticancer as well as the antimicrobial results in this study, it can be postulated that: PLGA nanofibers containing 7 % nano silver are suitable as anticancer- and antibiotic-drug delivery systems, as they will increase the anticancer as well as the antibiotic drug potency without cytotoxicity effect on the normal cells. These findings also suggest that Ag NPs, of the size (5–10 nm) evaluated in the present study, are appropriate for therapeutic application from a safety standpoint.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from NPST at King Saud University Project No. (09-BIO676-02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Fahad N. Almajhdi

  2. Biomedical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Helwan University, Helwan, Egypt

    H. Fouad

  3. Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh, 11421, Saudi Arabia

    Khalil Abdelrazek Khalil & Hany S. Abdo

  4. National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo, 12622, Egypt

    Hanem M. Awad & Sahar H. S. Mohamed

  5. Faculty of Engineering, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    T. Elsarnagawy

  6. Department of Pathology, College of Medicine and the University Hospitals, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Ahmed M. Albarrag

  7. FRCSC, College of Medicine, Orthopedic Surgery Research Chair King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Fawzi F. Al-Jassir

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  1. Fahad N. Almajhdi
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  2. H. Fouad
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Correspondence to H. Fouad.

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Almajhdi, F.N., Fouad, H., Khalil, K.A. et al. In-vitro anticancer and antimicrobial activities of PLGA/silver nanofiber composites prepared by electrospinning. J Mater Sci: Mater Med 25, 1045–1053 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10856-013-5131-y

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