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

Elena Mancuso; Chiara Tonda-Turo; Chiara Ceresa; Virginia Pensabene; Simon D Connell; Letizia Fracchia; Piergiorgio Gentile

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2019.00344

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

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2019 Dec 4:7:344. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2019.00344. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Elena Mancuso¹, Chiara Tonda-Turo², Chiara Ceresa³, Virginia Pensabene⁴, Simon D Connell⁵, Letizia Fracchia³, Piergiorgio Gentile⁶

Affiliations

¹ Nanotechnology and Integrated Bio-Engineering Centre (NIBEC), Ulster University, Newtownabbey, United Kingdom.
² PolitoBIOMed Lab, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy.
³ Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Università del Piemonte Orientale A. Avogadro, Novara, Italy.
⁴ School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and School of Medicine, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
⁵ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
⁶ School of Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.

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) rediscovering 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 assembly. Biomimetic electrospun poly(ε-caprolactone) meshes were treated via layer-by-layer assembly to obtain a multilayered nanocoating, consisting of MH as polyanion and poly-(allylamine-hydrochloride) as polycation. Physicochemical characterization demonstrated the successful nanocoating 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 that the antimicrobial MH activity was dependent on the concentration used and strains tested.

Keywords: Manuka honey; electrospinning; layer-by-layer assembly; manofunctionalization; soft tissue regeneration.