Plasma Mediated Chlorhexidine Immobilization onto Polylactic Acid Surface via Carbodiimide Chemistry: Antibacterial and Cytocompatibility Assessment
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Center of Polymer Systems, Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Trida Tomase Bati 5678, 760 01 Zlin, Czech Republic
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Research School of Chemistry and Applied Biomedical Sciences, Tomsk Polytechnic University, Lenin Av. 30, 634050 Tomsk, Russia
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Faculty of Technology, Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Vavreckova 275, 760 01 Zlin, Czech Republic
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Footwear Research Center, University Institute, Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Nad Ovcirnou 3685, 760 01 Zlin, Czech Republic
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Department of Surface Engineering and Optoelectronics, Jozef Stefan Institute, Jamova Cesta 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Alexey Iordanskii and Piotr Dobrzynski
Polymers 2021, 13(8), 1201; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13081201
Received: 25 February 2021 / Revised: 5 April 2021 / Accepted: 6 April 2021 / Published: 8 April 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymer Biointerfaces II)
The development of antibacterial materials has great importance in avoiding bacterial contamination and the risk of infection for implantable biomaterials. An antibacterial thin film coating on the surface via chemical bonding is a promising technique to keep native bulk material properties unchanged. However, most of the polymeric materials are chemically inert and highly hydrophobic, which makes chemical agent coating challenging Herein, immobilization of chlorhexidine, a broad-spectrum bactericidal cationic compound, onto the polylactic acid surface was performed in a multistep physicochemical method. Direct current plasma was used for surface functionalization, followed by carbodiimide chemistry to link the coupling reagents of N-(3-Dimethylaminopropyl)-N′-ethylcarbodiimide hydrochloride (EDAC) and N-Hydroxysuccinimide (NHs) to create a free bonding site to anchor the chlorhexidine. Surface characterizations were performed by water contact angle test, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The antibacterial activity was tested using Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Finally, in vitro cytocompatibility of the samples was studied using primary mouse embryonic fibroblast cells. It was found that all samples were cytocompatible and the best antibacterial performance observed was the Chlorhexidine immobilized sample after NHs activation.