Al-Obaidy Saba S M, Greenway Gillian M, Kalmagambetova Saule, Paunov Vesselin N
Department of Chemistry, University of Hull HU6 7RX UK.
Department of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Babylon Hilla 51001 Iraq.
RSC Adv. 2025 Jul 18;15(31):25497-25509. doi: 10.1039/d5ra03212a. eCollection 2025 Jul 15.
We report a strong boost of the antimicrobial action of curcumin (CUR) upon encapsulation in sterically stabilized shellac-based nanoparticles (NPs) with cationic surface functionalisation. The CUR-loaded shellac NPs were fabricated by solvent attrition and co-precipitation by mixing an aqueous solution of ammonium shellac and an ethanolic solution of curcumin followed by a pH drop from 8 to 5 in the presence of the sterically stabilising polymer Poloxamer 407 (P407). The surface functionalisation of the produced curcumin nanocarrier was done by subsequent doping with the water-insoluble cationic surfactant octadecylthrimethylammonium bromide (ODTAB). Optimal nanocarrier stability was obtained at a fixed ratio of (0.25 : 0.2) wt% of shellac : poloxamer 407 concentrations. Shellac NP formulations containing 0.01-0.07 wt% concentration range of encapsulated CUR with 0.25 wt% shellac at pH 5 were successfully produced and examined for the efficiency of CUR encapsulation and its release from these nanocarriers. We studied the antibacterial action of CUR-NPs before and after the cationic surface functionalisation to evaluate the encapsulation efficiency, the role of the nanocarrier components and surface properties on its antibacterial, antiyeast and antialgal action. The antimicrobial effect of the surface functionalised CUR loaded-shellac NPs was evaluated on different proxy microorganisms, including , and . The cationic coating of the shellac NPs strongly enhanced the antimicrobial effect of the encapsulated CUR for all the examined microorganisms. We envisage that the enhanced effect is due to the strong electrostatic attraction of the coated CUR-loaded shellac NPs and the anionic surface of the cell walls which promote the nanocarrier accumulation directly on the microbial cell membrane and the local delivery of CUR which increased its bioavailability. This nanotechnology-aided amplification of the antimicrobial effect of CUR may potentially offer new antialgal, anti-yeast and antibacterial formulations based on natural ingredients as shellac and curcumin without the use of conventional antibiotics.
我们报道了姜黄素（CUR）在封装于具有阳离子表面功能化的空间稳定虫胶基纳米颗粒（NPs）中时，其抗菌作用得到显著增强。负载CUR的虫胶纳米颗粒通过溶剂磨损和共沉淀法制备，即将虫胶铵水溶液与姜黄素乙醇溶液混合，然后在空间稳定聚合物泊洛沙姆407（P407）存在下将pH从8降至5。所制备的姜黄素纳米载体的表面功能化通过随后用不溶于水的阳离子表面活性剂十八烷基三甲基溴化铵（ODTAB）掺杂来实现。在虫胶与泊洛沙姆407浓度为（0.25∶0.2）wt%的固定比例下获得了最佳的纳米载体稳定性。成功制备了在pH 5时含有0.01 - 0.07 wt%封装CUR浓度范围且虫胶含量为0.25 wt%的虫胶纳米颗粒制剂，并对CUR的封装效率及其从这些纳米载体中的释放进行了检测。我们研究了阳离子表面功能化前后CUR纳米颗粒的抗菌作用，以评估封装效率、纳米载体成分及其表面性质对其抗菌、抗酵母和抗藻作用的影响。对负载表面功能化CUR的虫胶纳米颗粒在不同的替代微生物上评估其抗菌效果，这些微生物包括 、 和 。虫胶纳米颗粒的阳离子涂层对所有检测的微生物都显著增强了封装CUR的抗菌效果。我们设想增强的效果是由于负载CUR的虫胶纳米颗粒涂层与细胞壁阴离子表面之间的强静电吸引，这促进了纳米载体直接在微生物细胞膜上的积累以及CUR的局部递送，从而提高了其生物利用度。这种通过纳米技术辅助增强CUR抗菌效果的方法可能潜在地提供基于天然成分如虫胶和姜黄素的新型抗藻、抗酵母和抗菌制剂，而无需使用传统抗生素。
