Cytotoxicity studies on antibacterial polymers

• Main Author: Phua, Hui Ling
• Other Authors: Duan Hongwei
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Bioengineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/78530
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Microbial infection remains to be one of the most serious complications in many fields, particularly in medical devices, drugs, healthcare & hygiene applications, hospital surgery equipment, water purification systems, and food packaging & storage. Traditional antimicrobial agents posed problems such as toxicity to the environment and being unable to provide prolonged antimicrobial ability. Polymeric materials with antimicrobial activity were hence introduced, and this article shows the promising results of this novel agent, known as PDMP-RMP, with high efficacy, high selectivity and low cytotoxicity. This article discusses the need for such novel antimicrobial agent, the choice of the antimicrobial drug, the choice of the polymer, the formation of the agent, the antibacterial property, and the cytotoxicity and cell viability results. The antibacterial property of PDMP-RMP was investigated against Staphylococcus aureus by determination of the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC), while the cytotoxicity of PDMP-RMP was investigated on 3T3 cells using Dojindo Laboratories Cell Counting Kit-8 for cell viability assay. In conclusion, PDMP-RMP proves to be a potential polymeric material with efficient antimicrobial property while exhibiting low cytotoxicity. More studies and application could be done to further explore and justify the wide range of application that PDMP-RMP could possibly be utilised in.