Resumo:
Nowadays, infectious diseases are still a great challenge for human health.
Bacterial infections are one of the primary causes of worldwide mortality. Due to the
development of resistance processes, the search for therapeutic alternatives has focused on
many researchers of biomedical areas. In this sense, antimicrobial drugs’ encapsulation has
emerged as a relevant alternative, capable of improving the therapeutic effectiveness, while a
significant reduction in the side effects can be observed. Following in the same direction, in the
present work, mesoporous iron oxide nanoparticles (MIONs), loaded with ciprofloxacin, were
prepared in order to evaluate the potential application of the system against bacterial infections.
MIONs and MIONs silanized with 3-amino-propyltriethoxysilane - APTES (MIONs@APTES)
were obtained with a mean size of 78.34 ± 1.83 nm and surface areas of 258.27 and 186.27
m2
.g-1
, respectively. Both samples allowed to load relevant amounts of the drug, reaching a high
incorporation rate and a controlled release profile, with different kinetics behavior, when
incubated with simulated body fluid (SBF). MIONs samples showed release behavior
compatible with second order kinetics, while the MIONs@APTES matrix allowed the release
following a first order kinetics. The in vitro cytotoxicity evaluation of the obtained matrices
revealed that both systems exhibit biocompatibility profiles under normal human cell lineage
cells (HEK-293), where no significant cytotoxic profile was observed. On the other hand,
MIONs containing the antibiotic drug incorporated showed relevant antibiofilm properties
against a strain of Staphylococcus Aureus, when compared to controls consisting of free
ciprofloxacin and nanoparticles without the drug. From all the results obtained in this work, the
nanosystems produced can be considered as a potential system to be applied in the treatment of
bacterial infections.
