Fungicidal PMMA-Undecylenic Acid Composites.

Undecylenic acid (UA), known as antifungal agent, still cannot be used to efficiently modify commercial dental materials in such a way that this affects . Actually, issues with infections and fungal resistance compromise the use of Poly(methyl-methacrylate) (PMMA) as dental material. The challenge remains to turn PMMA into an antifugal material, which can ideally affect both sessile (attached) and planktonic (free-floating) cells. We aimed to tackle this challenge by designing PMMA-UA composites with different UA concentrations (3-12%). We studied their physico-chemical properties, the antifungal effect on and the cytotoxicity toward human cells. We found that UA changes the PMMA surface into a more hydrophilic one. Mainly, as-preparation composites with ≥6% UA reduced sessile for >90%. After six days, the composites were still efficiently reducing the sessile cells (for ~70% for composites with ≥6% UA). Similar results were recorded for planktonic . Moreover, the inhibition zone increased along with the UA concentration. The antifungal effect of UA was also examined at the surface of an UA-loaded agar and the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC90) was below the lowest-studied 0.0125% UA. Furthermore, the embedded filamentation test after 24 h and 48 h showed complete inhibition of the growth at 0.4% UA.