Development of antibacterial and high light transmittance bulk materials: Incorporation and sustained release of hydrophobic or hydrophilic antibiotics

Abstract Infection associated with medical devices is one of the most frequent complications of modern medical biomaterials. Bacteria have a strong ability to attach on solid surfaces, forming colonies and subsequently biofilms. In this work, a novel antibacterial bulk material was prepared through combining poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS) with either hydrophobic or hydrophilic antibiotics (0.1–0.2 wt%). Scanning electron microscopy, water contact angle and UV–vis spectrophotometer were used to measure the changes of surface topography, wettability and optical transmission. For both gentamicin sulfate (GS) and triclosan (TCA), the optical transmission of the PDMS-GS and PDMS-TCA blend films was higher than 90%. Drug release studies showed initial rapid release and later sustained release of GS or TCA under aqueous physiological conditions. The blend films demonstrated excellent bactericidal and sufficient biofilm inhibition functions against Gram-positive bacteria ( Staphylococcus aureus , S. aureus ) measured by LIVE/DEAD bacterial viability kit staining method. Kirby-Bauer method showed that there was obvious zone of inhibition (7.5–12.5 mm). Cytocompatibility assessment against human lens epithelial cells (HLECs) revealed that the PDMS-GS blend films had good cytocompatibility. However, the PDMS-TCA blend films showed certain cytotoxicity against HLECs. The PDMS-0.2 wt% GS blend films were compared to native PDMS in the rabbit subcutaneous S. aureus infection model. The blend films yielded a significantly lower degree of infection than native PDMS at day 7. The achievement of the PDMS-drug bulk materials with high light transmittance, excellent bactericidal function and good cytocompatibility can potentially be widely used as bio-optical materials.