Controlled delivery of tetracycline with TiO2@Chitosan@ZIF-8 nanocomposite and evaluation of their antimicrobial activities

In recent years, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted the attention of scientists. The applications of these frameworks are gas storage and separation, electrochemical energy storage, drug delivery, catalyst, etc. In this research, a nanocarrier named TiO2@Chitosan@ZIF-8 was synthesized to deliver the antibiotic tetracycline (TC). Furthermore, the antimicrobial effect of TiO2@Chitosan@ZIF-8@TC was tested against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria with the best results. The structure of the nanocarrier, as well as the nanocarrier/drug, was validated by the X-ray crystallography (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Breuer-Emmett-Teller (BET), field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX/Mapping). This research indicated that 90% of the TC was encapsulated in the synthesized framework. Also, drug release was performed at pH: 5 and pH: 7.4, which revealed that 73% and 67% of TC were released in three days. It is considerable that this is the first report of the synthesizing and using a novel nanocarrier including TiO2@Chitosan@ZIF-8 with various advantages such as high surface area, high porosity, high loading percentage, and high stability. [GRAPHICS] .

Automated summary

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have gained attention for their applications in various fields such as gas storage, energy storage, drug delivery, and catalysis. This research focused on synthesizing a nanocarrier called TiO2@Chitosan@ZIF-8 for delivering the antibiotic tetracycline (TC). The antimicrobial effect of the nanocarrier loaded with TC was tested against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli bacteria, showing promising results. The synthesized nanocarrier was validated through various characterization techniques, and it was found to have a high loading capacity for TC and controlled drug release at different pH levels.