AUTHOR=Mancuso Elena , Tonda-Turo Chiara , Ceresa Chiara , Pensabene Virginia , Connell Simon D. , Fracchia Letizia , Gentile Piergiorgio 

TITLE=Potential of Manuka Honey as a Natural Polyelectrolyte to Develop Biomimetic Nanostructured Meshes With Antimicrobial Properties

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology

VOLUME=Volume 7 - 2019

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/bioengineering-and-biotechnology/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2019.00344

DOI=10.3389/fbioe.2019.00344

ISSN=2296-4185

ABSTRACT=The use of antibiotics has been the cornerstone to prevent bacterial infections; however, the emergency of antibiotic resistant bacteria is still an open challenge. This work aimed to develop a delivery system for treating soft tissue infections for: (1) reducing the released antimicrobial amount, preventing drug-related systemic side effects, (2) re-discovering the beneficial effects of naturally-derived agents, and (3) preserving the substrate functional properties. For the first time Manuka honey (MH) was proposed as polyelectrolyte within the layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly. Biomimetic electrospun poly(ε-caprolactone) meshes were treated via LbL assembly to obtain a multilayered nanocoating, consisting of MH as polyanion and poly-(allylamine-hydrochloride) as polycation. Physico-chemical characterisation demonstrated the successful nano-coating formation. Different cell lines (Human immortalized and primary skin fibroblasts, and primary endothelial cells) confirmed positively the membranes cytocompatibility, while bacterial tests using Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria demonstrated the antimicrobial MH activity was dependent on the concentration used and strains tested.