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Microbial resistant nanocurcumin-gelatin-cellulose

fibers for advanced medical applications
Cite this: RSC Adv., 2014, 4, 3494
Gownolla Malegowd Raghavendra,a Tippabattini Jayaramudu,a
Kokkarachedu Varaprasad,*b Singanamala Rameshc and Konduru Mohana Rajua

Received 6th November 2013
Accepted 25th November 2013
DOI: 10.1039/c3ra46429f
www.rsc.org/advances
Curcumin, a greatly potent, non-toxic and naturally existing bioactive material in turmeric is widely
employed to develop biomedical functional materials due to its environmental friendly nature. In general,
curcumin functional materials were prepared by administrating non-aqueous solvents as a dissolving
medium for curcumin. These non-aqueous solvents cause adverse effects for the environment and
humans. However, if the curcumin functional materials are developed based on aqueous solution then
the adverse effects can be eliminated. In view of this, for the first time aqueous based nanocurcumin
(nanoparticles of curcumin) impregnated gelatin cellulose fibers (NCGCFs) were developed by a green
process. The required nanocurcumin was prepared by ultrasonication process. Transmission electron
microscopy showed the sizes of nanocurcumin exist in the range
2 to 15 nm. Nuclear magnetic
resonance spectra showed no structural modification of nanocurcumin to that of curcumin. The
developed fibres were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron
microscopy, thermal analysis and swelling studies. Cumulative releasing studies showed slow and
sustained releasing patterns for NCGCFs. A comparative antimicrobial study was performed for
nanocurcumin impregnated gelatin cellulose fibres (NCGCFs) and curcumin impregnated gelatin
cellulose fibres (CGCFs) against E. coli and S. aureus. The results indicated the superior performance of
NCGCFs over CGCFs. Hence, NCGCFs prepared completely from naturally available materials can be
considered as a novel kind of functional materials for wound dressing and antimicrobial applications.

systems as solvents for curcumin.8–10 However, these

1. Introduction
In the case of bulk loss of tissue or nonhealing wounds such as
burns, trauma, diabetic, decubitus and venousstasis ulcers, a
proper wound dressing is needed to cover the wound area,
protect the damaged tissue and if possible to activate the cell
proliferation and stimulate the healing process.1 For this
purpose, a natural, non-toxic and biocompatible material is
highly preferable based on environmental reasons.
Curcumin, a natural hydrophobic polyphenolic compound
derived from the rhizome of the herb curcuma longa, possesses
a wide range of biological activity including wound healing,
anti-bacterial, anti-oxidant, anti-inammatory and anti-cancer
properties.2–5 Though curcumin possess signicant biomedical
properties, it is poorly soluble in aqueous solvents.6,7 This limits
its clinical application. Of late, many researchers administrated
non-aqueous solvents or combination of organic and aqueous
a
Synthetic Polymer Laboratory, Department of Polymer Science & Technology, Sri
Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapuramu-515003, India
b
Departamento de Ingenierı́a de Materiales–DIMAT, Facultad de Ingenierı́a
Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile. E-mail: varmaindian@gmail.com;
kvaraprasad@udec.cl
c
Phytomedicine Laboratory, Department of Botany, Sri Krishnadevaraya University,
Anantapuramu-515003, India
approaches cause some undesirable effects for the human and
the environment.11–14 Owing to this researchers explored newer
approaches which involve: the use of adjuvant like piperine that
interferes with glucuronidation; the use of liposomal curcumin;
the use of curcumin phospholipid complex; the use of struc-
tural analogues of curcumin.15–17 But these methods seem to be
expensive or complicated or to have a low performance.18 In that
aspect, recently Bhawana et al. prepared nanocurcumin (nano-
particles of curcumin),19 which showed improved aqueous
solubility, thereby it can be used directly instead of curcumin.
In this investigation, to enhance the curcumin applicability in
biomedical sciences, nanocurcumin was synthesized and used
along with suitable natural polymers, gelatin and cellulose.
Gelatin, a water soluble protein derived from unwired
helices of natural collagen, is widely used in biomedical appli-
cations,20–23 particularly in designing wound dressing mate-
rials,24 haemostatic agents,25 tissue engineering scaffolds and
drug delivery matrices.26 In addition, it is pro-angiogenic,27 non-
immunogenic,28 biocompatible, biodegradable29 and exhibits
low inammatory cell response without side effects in the host
tissue.30 Further, gelatin absorbs excess wound exudates
because of its excellent ability to absorb water more than 5–
10 times as weight as itself.31

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In our recent study, natural polymer with silver nano-
particles impregnated cellulose bres has conrmed signi-
cant antibacterial properties.32 In surgical zone, cellulose
bres gained medically more importance as designing
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material for scaffolds. Cellulose bre contains cellulose, a
homopolymer of b-D-glucopyranose units linked together by
(1 / 4)-glycosideic bonds.33 Cellulose bres as a scaffold
supports injured limb or wound, absorbs blood and secre-
tions exudates and provide pain relief. It serves as the
protective dressing for wound, thereby preventing wound
contamination from outside environment. Hence, developing
antimicrobial property for cellulose bres is an advantageous
step in improving medical standards in the area of surgical
zone.
In view of above, a signicant attempt was made to develop
nanocurcumin-gelatin cellulose bres (NCGCFs) for advanced
antimicrobial applications by utilizing completely natural
materials. A comparative antimicrobial study was performed for
NCGCFs and curcumin impregnated gelatin cellulose bres
(CGCFs). The results indicated the superior performance of
NCGCFs over CGCFs. So far, no work was reported on the
nanocurcumin impregnated cellulose bres. For the rst time
nanocurcumin impregnated gelatin cellulose bers (NCGCFs)
were developed by eco-friendly green process. The improved
therapeutic potentialities of nanocurcumin bres, obtained by
following environmental friendly approach is a promising tool
to curb micro-organisms and will open a new era in modern bio-
medical applications.
2. Experimental Procedures
2.1. Materials
Curcumin (assay of 98%) supplied by Sigma Aldrich (Bengaluru,
India). Cotton cellulose bres (1 mm thickness) were purchased
from SIMCO thread mills (Salem, Chennai, India). Gelatin (GT;
product no. 54045) was obtained from S.D. Fine Chemicals
(India). Dichloromethane (DCM) purchased from Merck speci-
alities Pvt. Ltd (Mumbai, India). All the chemicals used in this
work are of analytical grade. Double distilled water was used
thorough out the experiments.
2.2. Synthesis of curcumin nanoparticles (nanocurcumin)
Curcumin nanoparticles were prepared by ultrasonication
technique. In a typical synthesis, 1 mL of curcumin solution
(0.5 w/v%) prepared from dichloromethane (DCM) was sprayed
dropwise into 50 mL boiling water at a ow rate of 0.2 mL min1
under ultrasonic conditions, with an ultrasonic power of 100 W
and a frequency of 30 kHz, similar to the method adopted by
Bhawana et al.19 Aer 15 min sonication, the contents were
stirred at 200–800 rpm at ambient temperature for about 20 min
till all the dichloromethane was evaporated and a clear orange-
colored solution was remained. The solution was ultra-
centrifuged for 20 minutes at 12 000 rpm and freeze-dried to
obtain curcumin nanoparticles (nanocurcumin) and utilized for
further studies.
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2.3. Preparation of nanocurcumin-gelatin cellulose bres
(NCGCFs) and curcumin-gelatin cellulose bres (CGCFs)
Finely aqueous dispersed nanocurcumin of various concentra-
tions in water (10 mg per 5 mL, 15 mg per 5 mL and 20 mg per
5 mL) were prepared by sonicating the respective solutions for
15 min. To each of the solutions, 50 mL (1% w/v) gelatin solu-
tion was added. The contents were stirred over orbital shaking
incubator at 250 rpm with an ambient temperature of 27  C for
4 h, followed by 15 min sonication to obtain homogeneous
nanocurcumin gelatin solutions. For the obtained homoge-
neous solutions, 500 mg of pre-weighed and washed cellulose
bres were immersed, stirred for 4 h at 250 rpm at an ambient
temperature and sonicated for 15 min to acquire nanocurcumin
impregnated gelatin cellulose bres (NCGCFs). Finally, various
formulations of NCGCFs (NCGCF-10, NCGCF-15 and NCGCF-
20) were taken out, air dried and kept in dessicator for further
characterizations.
Analogous to NCGCFs, similar formulations of curcumin
impregnated gelatin cellulose bres, CGCFs (CGCF-10, CGCF-15
and CGCF-20) were prepared directly by taking various
concentrations of curcumin solution (DCM as solvent) instead
aqueous nanocurcumin dispersion. The synthesis routes for
NCGCFs and CGCFs were shown in Scheme 1.
2.4. Characterizations
The morphology of obtained nanocurcumin was observed with
transmission electron microscopy (JEM-1200EX, JEOL, Tokyo,
Japan), performed by placing a drop of the aqueous nano-
curcumin dispersion (10 mL; 2 mg mL1) on the 3 mm copper
grid and allowed it to dry at ambient temperature. 1H NMR
spectra was obtained in CDCl3 using Bruker DRX 300 MHz NMR
spectrophotometer. Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy
(FTIR) was conducted to investigate the possible chemical
interactions among cellulose bres, gelatin and nanocurcumin
by using a Perkin Elmer (Model Impact 410, Wisconsin, MI,
USA) spectrophotometer over the scanning range 500–4000
cm1. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was utilized to
observe the surface morphology (JEOL JEM 7500F, Tokyo,
Japan) of the developed bres at an accelerating voltage 3 kV. All
samples were gold coated previous to examination with a led
SEM. The thermal analysis was conducted on SDT Q 600
thermal analyzer (T. A. Instruments-water LLC, Newcastle, DE,
USA), at a heating rate of 20  C min1 with 100 mL min1
nitrogen gas ow rate. Curcumin/nanocurcumin releasing
patterns of the bres were monitored by using UV-Vis spectro-
photometer (Elico-SL 164, Hyderabad, India).
2.5. Cumulative releasing studies
Recent studies have indicated that it is important to know the
antibacterial activity over a period of time. To provide efficient
antibacterial activity over a period of time a stable and pro-
longed release of curcumin/nanocurcumin is necessary. In
order to study the release of curcumin/nanocurcumin from the
developed bres, known weights of bres were placed in a
measured volume (5 mL) of 7.4 pH buffer at 37  C and the
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Scheme 1 Schematically illustrating the synthesis routes for NCGCFs and CGCFs.
released amount of curcumin was determined at different time
intervals by recording the absorbance of release medium by
UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The absorption of the solutions of
curcumin was measured at lmax 491.2 nm.2
2.6. Swelling properties
The swelling ratio or swelling capacity (Sg/g) of all the bres
developed was determined by swelling them in phosphate
buffered saline (PBS), pH 7.4 for 24 h at 37  C using eqn (1):
Swelling ratio (Sg/g) ¼ [Ws  Wd]/Wd (1)
where, Ws and Wd denote the weight of the swollen cellulose
bre at equilibrium and the weight of the dry cellulose bre,
respectively. The data provided is an average value of 3 indi-
vidual sample readings.
2.7. Antimicrobial activity
The antimicrobial activity of developed bres was tested against
Staphylococcus aureus (G+) MTCC-7443 and Escherichia coli (G )
MTCC-1668, obtained from the Institute of Microbial Tech-
nology, Chandigarh, India. The required nutrient agar medium
was prepared by mixing peptone (5.0 g), beef extract (3.0 g),
sodium chloride (5.0 g) and agar (15.0 g) in 1000 mL of distilled
water and the pH was adjusted to 7.0.34,35 The agar medium was
sterilized in a conical ask at a pressure of 6.8 kg (15 lbs) for
30 min and transferred into sterilized petri dishes in a laminar
air ow chamber (Microlt Laminar Flow Ultra Clean Air Unit,
Mumbai, India) for solidication. Aer solidication, 50 mL
(108 CFU mL1) of microbial culture was uniformly spread out.
Over the petri dishes, bres (NCGCFs/CGCFs) each of 5 mm
length were distributed and incubated for 24 h at 37  C to
obtain inhibition zones. Finally, the formed inhibition zones
were measured and photographed.
3. Results and discussions
Ordinary wound dressings allow microorganisms to exhibit
undesirable effects on wounds. This is one of the main factors
for disease transmission and subsequent tissue damage.36 This
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factor has stimulated to develop microbial resistant nano-
curcumin impregnated gelatin cellulose bers (NCGCFs) for
wound dressing scaffolds. Further, employing curcumin as
nanoparticles (nanocurcumin) has exhibited pronounced
activity than administering directly as curcumin.19 The method
adopted to develop NCGCFs was a green process, feasible at
ambient conditions without the aid of any external chemical
agent. The process of preparing antimicrobial bres (NCGCFs)
was systematically illustrated in Scheme 1: Step 1: preparation
of nanocurcumin by a physical ultrasonication process. Step 2:
preparation of aqueous nanocurcumin dispersion. Step 3:
fabrication of antimicrobial NCGCFs from cellulose bres.
To compare the enhanced results of NCGCFs, curcumin
impregnated gelatin cellulose bres (CGCFs) were also prepared
by taking curcumin solution (DCM as solvent). The synthesis
route for CGCFs was shown in Scheme 1. The key role of gelatin
is to stabilize the nanocurcumin with cellulose bres and also to
release the nanocurcumin in sustained manner for longer
duration. Gelatin was particularly chosen due to its wide
applications in biomedical eld, particularly in designing
wound dressings materials. It also exhibits low inammatory
cell response without side effects in the host tissue.30
Examination of nanocurcumin by TEM (Fig. 1A(a–c)) showed
the nanoparticles were spherical in shape and exists in the size
range of
2 to 15 nm. The quite interesting aspect of nano-
curcumin was, though it was physically compacted to nano-
dimension, it was structurally not altered and showed NMR
spectrum similar to that of the pure curcumin (Fig. 1B). In 1H
NMR spectra (Fig. 1B), the peaks at d 3.951 and 5.802 ppm
showed the presence of intact methoxy groups and the methine
proton in enolic form. The peaks in the range of d 6.841–7.138
ppm showed the presence of aromatic protons.19 Two doublets
were assigned for olenic protons at d 6.504 and 7.618 ppm
respectively and were coinciding with those many of previously
reported literatures. Over all, NMR spectra suggested the
chemical integrity of nanocurcumin was identical to that of
curcumin. Structure of curcumin and the 1H NMR spectra of
nanocurcumin were presented in Fig. 1B.
To understand the morphology of the bres, SEM exami-
nation was carried out for NCGCF, CGCF, gelatin-cellulose bre
and pure cellulose bre. SEM image of NCGCF (Fig. 2A) clearly
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Fig. 1 (A) TEM images of nanocurcumin (a–c) and (B) 1H NMR spectra of nanocurcumin in CDCl3 and structure of curcumin.
depicts the uniform distribution of curcumin nanoparticles
over gelatin bound cellulose bre which were highly stabilized
by hydrophilic groups of gelatin. In case of CGCFs (Fig. 2B),
irregular distribution of bulky curcumin with less stabilized by
hydrophilic groups of gelatin could be seen. Fig. 2E represents
SEM image of pure cellulose bre. The SEM image of gelatin-
cellulose bre (Fig. 2D) were prepared from 1% gelatin solution
that was used in the synthesis of NCGCFs/CGCFs showed a
smooth surface without any particle distribution. This indi-
cates that the distributed particles in case of NCGCFs and
CGCFs are only due to nanocurcumin/curcumin respectively.
Also it could be clearly seen from Fig. 2A and B that due to size
factor, curcumin in its nano form exists more in number
and more in quantity over NCGCFs than in bulk form over
CGCFs. Further, the presence of nanocurcumin/curcumin over
gelatin bound cellulose bres was technically conrmed
through its bonding interactions by using FTIR spectral data
and thermal data.
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FTIR spectroscopy is an important tool that indicates the
combined interaction of nanocurcumin, gelatin and pure
cellulose bre in NCGCFs bres. The spectra of pure cellulose
bre, nanocurcumin, gelatin and NCGCF were shown in Fig. 2B.
For pure cellulose bre, characteristic peaks at around 3364
cm1, 2924 cm1 and at around 1311 cm1 corresponding to
–OH stretching frequency, >CH2 stretching vibration and C–H
bending mode respectively; characteristic bands at 1150 and
1015 cm1 are assigned to the C–O–C from the glucosidic units
or from b-(1 / 4)-glucosidic bonds.37,38 For nanocurcumin, the
bands observed at 3346 cm1, 1591 cm1, 1508 cm1, 1263
cm1, and 1142 cm1 are respectively attributed to the phenolic
O–H stretching, stretching vibrations of the benzene ring, C]C
vibrations, aromatic C–O stretching and C–O–C stretching
modes.39 Gelatin showed characteristic peaks at 3284 cm1 due
to N–H stretching, at 1634 cm1 due to C]O stretching (amide
I), at 1540 cm1 due to N–H bending (amide II) and at
1236 cm1 due to C–N (amide III).40,41 The spectra of NCGCFs
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Fig. 2 SEM images of (A) NCGCFs fibre, (B) CGCFs fibre, (D) gelatin-cellulose fibre, (E) pure cellulose fibre, and (C) FTIR spectra of pure cellulose
fibre, nanocurcumin, gelatin and NCGCFs fibre.
comprise a composite of the cellulose bre, nanocurcumin and
gelatin, displaying all the characteristic bands of cellulose bre,
nanocurcumin and gelatin. This clearly indicates their bonding
interaction.
Thermal property of bres is a valuable piece of evidence that
provides the information on physical characteristics and the
components present in the bres as well. The primary ther-
mogram of the bres was shown in Fig. 3A. The results indi-
cated that, in all the samples, an initial weight loss at a
temperature below 100  C was observed due to the loss of
moisture present on the surface. The initial degradation of
NCGCFs occurs at around 290.67  C, higher than all of its
individual components and the nal degradation temperature
Fig. 3 (A) TGA curves of pure cellulose fibre, gelatin, nanocurcumin and NCGCFs fibre, (B) % cumulative releasing studies of CGCF-20 and
NCGCF-20.
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occurs at around 398.48  C. The thermal decomposition residue
of NCGCFs at 600  C was 25.04%, an intermediate value of the
remaining thermal residues (cellulose bre (15.45%), gelatin
(23.97%) and nanocurcumin (28.94%)). The intermediate value
indicates that all the components in NCGCF were well bound to
give a normalized result. Based on the thermal data, it was
evident that in NCGCFs all the components were well bind as a
composite to exhibit good thermal stability.
3.1. Cumulative releasing studies
The cumulative releasing studies (Fig. 3B) demonstrated that
the rate of curcumin/nanocurcumin release is different for
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NCGCFs and CGCFs. In comparison with both the bres
(NCGCFs and CGCFs), CGCFs release curcumin at a faster rate
than NCGCFs. CGCFs released all the amount of curcumin that
present in it at about 16 h where as NCGCFs showed at about
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60 h. The observed slow and sustained release of nanocurcumin
from NCGCFs was due to more stabilization of nanocurcumin
by the hydrophilic groups of gelatin, owing to its size factor. The
prolonged release of nanocurcumin from NCGCFs suggests the
usefulness of the product towards wound care applications for a
longer duration.
3.2. Swelling ratio
Swelling ratio plays a signicant role in biomedical applica-
tions, particularly in antibacterial applications. In the present
investigation, the swelling ratios of bres were measured at an
ambient temperature by using a gravimetric method.35 Initially
known weight of dried bres was immersed in 50 mL phosphate
buffered saline (PBS), pH 7.4 for 24 h at 37  C. The bres were
then removed and their surfaces were blotted with lter paper
and weighed. The swelling patterns of the bres (NCGCFs/
CGCFs) were illustrated in Fig. 4.
It was noticed primarily that the swelling ratios of the
developed bres (NCGCFs/CGCFs) were higher than that of pure
cellulose bre. The signicant result was due to the hydrophilic
nature of gelatin that bound to the developed bres of NCGCFs/
CGCFs, which could able to absorb water more than 5–10 times
as weight as itself.31 Secondly, from Fig. 4A and B, it was clear
that the swelling ratio of the bres (both NCGCFs and CGCFs)
increases with increase in concentration of curcumin/nano-
curcumin. It was predicted that the existed voids between the
particles (curcumin/nanocurcumin) act as both facilitating and
trapping network for incoming water molecules to interact
further with gelatin and to accumulate over the bre. The
phenomenon can be comparable with various hydrophilic
hydrogel systems.24 The proportionately increase in number of
voids with increase in concentration of curcumin/nano-
curcumin provides scope for much more water molecules to
retain in the voids and accumulate over the bre, resulting
increased swelling ratio values for both NCGCFs and CGCFs
Fig. 4 Swelling behavior of (A) cellulose fibre and various formulations of CGCFs (CGCF-10, CGCF-15 and CGCF-20) and (B) cellulose fibre and
various formulations of NCGCFs (NCGCF-10, NCGCF-15 and NCGCF-20).
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with increase in concentration. Further, for the same concen-
tration, the swelling ratio values of NCGCFs (Fig. 4B) are higher
than CGCFs (Fig. 4A). This was due to ‘size factor’ and
‘aqueous–nanocurcumin interaction’. Due to size factor, for the
same quantity of material, stoichiometrically nanocurcumin
exists more in number than bulk curcumin, thereby stoichio-
metrically more number of voids will exist to retain more
number of water molecules in case of NCGCFs. Apart from this,
size factor allows smaller nanocurcumin to distribute more
uniformly with well dened voids over NCGCFs, whereas, these
well dened voids were absent in case of CGCFs. Owing to these
reasons, comparatively large amount of water molecules will be
retained and accumulated in the more and well dened voids of
NCGCFs than lesser irregular voids of CGCFs, resulting higher
swelling for NCGCFs. The other factor that contributes for
higher swelling of NCGCFs is ‘aqueous–nanocurcumin inter-
action’. Compared to bulk curcumin, nanocurcumin possesses
higher aqueous interaction which also enhances the swelling of
NCGCFs.19 Hence, it was concluded that when all the relative
components in NCGCFs and CGCFs were being equal, the
enhanced swelling ratio of NCGCFs was due to ‘size factor’ and
‘aqueous–nanocurcumin interaction’. Overall, swelling data
signicantly conrms that the developed bres were good
absorbents for blood and secretions exudates, which is very
essential for wound dressing applications.
3.3. Antimicrobial activity
The main objective of this study is to develop aqueous based
environmental friendly microbial resistant bres by effective
utilization of curcumin. Keeping this in view, novel nano-
curcumin bres were developed as effective antimicrobial
agents against E. coli and S. aureus. Fig. 5 illustrates the anti-
microbial efficiency of the developed bres (NCGCFs/CGCFs).
The inhibition zones exhibited by all the bres (NCGCFs/
CGCFs) were found to be in the range 2.5–6 mm. According to
the Standard Antibacterial test “SNV 195920-1992”, specimens
showing more than 1 mm microbial zone inhibition can be
considered as good antibacterial agents.42 Hence, the bres
developed were considered as good antibacterial agents,
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Fig. 5 Antibacterial activity against (A) E. coli and (B) S. aureus
exhibited by (o) pure cellulose fibre, (a) CGCF-10, (b) CGCF-20, (c)
NCGCF-10 and (d) NCGCF-20.
effective in killing the bacteria. From Fig. 5, it was noticed that
NCGCFs, developed based on aqueous solution showed better
inhibition zones than CGCFs, developed based on non-aqueous
solvent (DCM). This clearly indicates the superior performance
of nanocurcumin impregnated gelatin cellulose bres
(NCGCFs). The superior performance was due to presence of
quantitatively and stoichiometrically more nanocurcumin
molecules over NCGCFs than CGCFs that involved in bacterial
devastation process. Due to increase in quantity and nano-
curcumin number, more number of curcumin nanoparticles
will be released from NCGCFs and act on relatively more
number of bacterial colonies and destroy, resulting higher
bacterial inhibition zone for NCGCFs than CGCFs. Also, as the
antibacterial activity was performed over a period of 24 h, the
amount of curcumin that act against the bacteria is the amount
of curcumin that released from bres at 24 h. The amount of
curcumin release (%) can be calculated from the % cumulative
release curves (Fig. 3B). It was clearly evident from Fig. 3B that
by the time 24 h, CGCFs releases all its impregnated curcumin,
where as NCGCFs releases only 80.24% of curcumin. This
indicates that though the antibacterial activity of CGCFs was
due to 100% release of curcumin, the concerned inhibition
zones exhibited by CGCFs were less than the inhibition zones
exhibited by NCGCFs where the curcumin release was only
80.24%. This indicates the higher efficiency of the NCGCFs
bres than CGCFs. Further, to conrm the higher efficiency of
NCGCFs than CGCFs in curbing the bacteria, antibacterial test
was performed for the similar concentrations of homogeneous
curcumin and nanocurcumin gelatin solutions, which were
used during synthesis of NCGCFs and CGCFs. The test was
carried out by maintaining the conditions similar to the
conditions that were maintained for antibacterial test for
bres. The results undoubtedly reached the predicted expec-
tations and showed higher inhibition zones for nanocurcumin
gelatin solutions than curcumin gelatin solutions, suggesting
the higher efficiency of nanocurcumin and thereby nano-
curcumin impregnated NCGCFs. With these results, it was
concluded that the higher inhibition zones exhibited by
NCGCFs were not duly as a result of quantitative and stoi-
chiometric parameters but impact of nanocurcumin was also
played. Based on above experimental ndings, NCGCFs
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exhibited enhanced antimicrobial efficiency seems to be
appropriate.
It was reported that antimicrobial action of phenolic
compounds was related to the inactivation of cellular enzymes,
which depended on the rate of penetration of the substance into
the cell or caused by membrane permeability changes.43 Higher
surface area of curcumin nanonanoparticles provides compar-
atively more interaction surface for nanocurcumin to interact
with bacteria and smaller size of it facilitates to penetrate more
effectively inside the cell wall, causing bacterial death. In over
all, the mechanism of antibacterial activity was believed to be
anchoring of nanocurcumin to the cell wall of the bacterial cell,
breaking it, and then penetrating inside the cell. The penetrated
nanocurcumin disrupt the cell organelles and kill the cell
through lysis.19 The antibacterial activity was more pronounced
against S. aureus (G+) than E. coli (G) due to which inhibition
zones were formed higher for S. aureus (G+) than E. coli (G)
(Fig. 5). This variation in antibacterial activity is due to the
difference in their cell membrane constituents and structure.19
It is known that S. aureus (G+) contain an outer peptidoglycan
layer, while E. coli (G) contain an outer phospholipidic
membrane, both of which undergo different types of interaction
when encountered by curcumin.19
4. Conclusion
From the present investigation, aqueous based nanocurcumin
impregnated gelatin cellulose bers (NCGCFs) were developed
as effective antimicrobial agents. The process adopted was a
green process and the materials employed were of natural
origin. The developed NCGCFs showed more pronounced
antibacterial activity than CGCFs. Hence, NCGCFs have great
potential for their utilization in wound/burn dressings as well
as in the fabrication of antibacterial nishings and textiles.
Acknowledgements
The author (IF 110192) wish to acknowledge the Department of
Science & Technology (DST, INIDA) and Ministry of Science &
Technology for providing nancial assistance through Innova-
tion In Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) pro-
gramme. The authors (KVP) thank the Fondecyt Proyecto no.:
3130748 Chile (South America).
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