The Effect of Co‐Delivery of Oxygen and Antibacterial Drug Gentamicin From Alginate‐Based Nanocomposite Hydrogels on Bacterial Apoptosis and Cell Viability

Abstract There is a need to develop multifunctional biomaterials that can deliver oxygen and antibacterial drugs together for effective wound healing applications. Here, we report a novel biomaterial capable of co‐delivering O 2 and the antibacterial drug Gentamicin (GEN) for a period of 7 and 15 days, respectively. This biomaterial is fabricated by the synthesis of perfluorocarbon‐based periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMOF) and the loading of its pores with GEN ( GEN PMOF). The synthesized GEN PMOF is incorporated in alginate hydrogel to obtain Alg‐ GEN PMOF with O 2 and GEN co‐delivery ability. Our results show that PMOF and GEN PMOF have concentration‐dependent toxicity on both Gram‐negative E. coli and Gram‐positive S. aureus bacteria. The most effective concentration of PMOF and GEN PMOF (0.5 mg/mL) show little toxic effect for fibroblast cells. On the other hand, Alg‐PMOF and Alg‐ GEN PMOF prepared using this concentration require a long incubation time with E. coli to induce apoptosis. However, an incubation period of 1 day is sufficient to inhibit the growth of S. Aureus . Furthermore, Alg‐PMOF and Alg‐ GEN PMOF increase fibroblast cell viability under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions while slightly decreasing cancerous Malme‐3M cell viability within 5 days of incubation.