Cationic carboxymethyl chitosan nanofibers embedded with silver nanoparticles for enhanced antibacterial applications

There has been a growing concern regarding antibiotic resistance which has led to the design of new antibacterial nanocomposite with high efficiency and low cytotoxicity. This report demonstrates an approach for the design of a nanocomposite comprising of histidine tagged silver nanoparticles (His@AgNPs) embedded it in a carboxymethyl chitosan hydrogel (CHG). Carboxymethyl chitosan was used as a cationic polymer substrate to reinforce the antibacterial activity of the embedded silver nanoparticles. ICP-MS showed sufficient release of silver ions which results in enhanced antibacterial activity. In addition, the hydrogel with embedded silver nanoparticles exhibited excellent antibacterial performance against gram-negative Escherichia coli and gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus through a "kill-release" stratagem, which was mainly due to the synergistic effect of CHG and Ag⁺ ions release. The results showed that the cross-linking may enhance antibacterial activities of nanocomposite (CHG-His@AgNPs) by approximately 4-folds in comparison to His@AgNPs. A strong signal observed in confocal microscopy confirmed the successful internalization of the nanocomposite in tested microorganisms. The change in the morphology of the bacterial cells upon the treatment with nanocomposite was observed through FE-SEM microscopy which confirmed the antibacterial activity of the nanocomposite. The synthesized nanocomposite can thereby serve as an excellent candidate for tackling antibiotic resistance.