Insights into the effect of gold nanospheres, nanotriangles and spherical nanocages on the structural, morphological and biological properties of bioactive glasses

Bioactive glasses that contain gold nanoparticles are materials with real potential in soft tissue engineering applications due to their ability to stimulate keratinocytes cells' proliferation. In this study, Pluronic F127 stabilized, differently shaped gold nanoparticles, i.e. nanospheres, nanotriangles and spherical nanocages, that were further added through the sol-gel synthesis of the SiO2-CaO-P2O5 glasses. The in vitro bioactivity and bio-compatibility assessments of the obtained composites were then performed. To activate the antibacterial properties, the gold nanocages were stabilized with silver. Although the size distribution and the morphology of gold nanoparticles in the glass undergo changes after thermal treatment, the achieved results demonstrated that the glasses' in vitro bioactivity was not particularly affected. The glass sample with gold nanocages, due to silver content, exhibited great antibacterial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. The proliferation rates of Human keratinocytes cells were good on glass-AuNPs composites with sphere and nanocage morphology, although all samples showed good in vitro tolerance.