Mesoporous Silica Materials Loaded with Gallic Acid with Antimicrobial Potential

This paper aimed to develop two types of support materials with a mesoporous structure of mobile crystalline matter (known in the literature as MCM, namely MCM-41 and MCM-48) and to load them with gallic acid. Soft templating methodology was chosen for the preparation of the mesoporous structures-the cylindrical micelles with certain structural characteristics being formed due to the hydrophilic and hydrophobic intermolecular forces which occur between the molecules of the surfactants (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide-CTAB) when a minimal micellar ionic concentration is reached. These mesoporous supports were loaded with gallic acid using three different types of MCM-gallic acid ratios (1:0.41; 1:0.82 and 1:1.21)-and their characterizations by FTIR, SEM, XRD, BET and drug release were performed. It is worth mentioning that the loading was carried out using a vacuum-assisted methodology: the mesoporous materials are firstly kept under vacuum at ~0.1 barr for 30 min followed by the addition of the polyphenol solutions. The concentration of the solutions was adapted such that the final volume covered the wet mesoporous support and-in this case-upon reaching normal atmospheric pressure, the solution was pushed inside the pores, and thus the polyphenols were mainly loaded inside the pores. Based on the S_BET data, it can be seen that the specific surface area decreased considerably with the increasing ratio of gallic acid; the specific surface area decreased 3.07 and 4.25 times for MCM-41 and MCM-48, respectively. The sample with the highest polyphenol content was further evaluated from a biological point of view, alone or in association with amoxicillin administration. As expected, the MCM-41 and MCM-48 were not protective against infections-but, due to the loading of the gallic acid, a potentiated inhibition was recorded for the tested gram-negative bacterial strains. Moreover, it is important to mention that these systems can be efficient solutions for the recovery of the gut microbiota after exposure to antibiotics, for instance.