Journal of Polymer Research (2020) 27: 74

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10965-020-02050-3

ORIGINAL PAPER

Antibacterial, antibiofilm and cytotoxic activities of biogenic

polyvinyl alcohol-silver and chitosan-silver nanocomposites
Omnia M. Abdallah 1 & Khaled Z. EL-Baghdady 2 & Mostafa M. H. Khalil 3 & Mervat I. El Borhamy 4,5 & Gamal A. Meligi 3

Received: 19 September 2019 / Accepted: 21 February 2020 / Published online: 27 February 2020
# The Polymer Society, Taipei 2020

Abstract
Using biogenically synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) by Enterobacter cloacae Ism 26 (KP988024); Polyvinyl Alcohol-
Silver (PVA-Ag) and Chitosan-Silver (CS-Ag) nanocomposites were prepared by augmentation. Thermal stability, AgNPs
distribution and concentration within nanocomposites were characterized using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning
electron microscope/energy dispersive x-ray (SEM/EDX) and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). Nanocomposites films
showed higher thermal stability than pure polymers, different AgNPs concentrations with homogenous distribution.
Antibacterial, antibiofilm and cytotoxic activities of nanocomposites films were studied against Multi Drug Resistant (MDR)
bacteria including Staphylococcus epidermidis (S.e), Staphylococcus aureus (S.a), Escherichia coli (E.c) and Klebsiella
pneumoniae (K.p). PVA-Ag nanocomposite showed larger zones of inhibitions and higher antibiofilm activities than CS-Ag
nanocomposite against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. AgNPs solution, PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites
showed low cytotoxic activities against Huh-7 liver cells and IC50 values of 263.20 μg ml−1, 1185.07 μg ml−1 and
119.85 μg ml−1, respectively. PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites films showed enhanced thermal stability and biological
properties that qualify them for different biomedical applications.

Keywords Nanocomposites . Films . Antibacterial . Antibiofilm . Cytotoxicity . Polyvinyl alcohol . Chitosan

Introduction decomposes under aerobic and anaerobic conditions into car-

bon, hydrogen and oxygen. PVA is approved by food and
PVA and CS are gaining a lot of research interest due to their drug administration (FDA) to be used in the food industry,
biodegradability and biocompatibility applications [1]. PVA is textile, paper products and medical devices [2, 3]. It can be
a synthetic water-soluble, biodegradable polymer. It administrated orally or intravenously and removed with no
side effects [4–6]. CS is the second most abundant natural
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article available polymer, after cellulose. It’s a linear biopolymer that
(https://doi.org/10.1007/s10965-020-02050-3) contains supplementary can be isolated from crustacean shells, fungi cell walls or
material, which is available to authorized users.
chemically synthesized from chitin [7]. CS is a highly viscous
polymer, soluble in dilute acids (1% acetic acid) and can be
* Omnia M. Abdallah
omniamohamed990@gmail.com hydrolyzed by the human enzymatic system into nontoxic
products [8]. PVA and CS are considered unique carriers for
1
different nanoparticles [9]. Their high mechanical strength,
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Misr International
University, Cairo, Egypt
biocompatibility and crosslinking properties make them able
2
to form nanocomposite films and hydrogels. They are one of
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams
University, Cairo, Egypt
the green environmentally friendly choices for many biomed-
3
ical and industrial applications due to their biological activities
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University,
Cairo, Egypt
[10, 11]. They have been used in drug delivery, wound dress-
4
ing, filtration, biosensors, biological scaffolds, contact lenses,
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Misr
International University, Cairo, Egypt
tissue engineering, grafts and implants [1, 3, 12, 13]. Recent
5
researches showed that addition of nanoparticles to polymers
International Medical Center, Clinical Microbiology Laboratory,
Cairo, Egypt
enhanced the biological properties of polymers and offered
74 Page 2 of 9
wider scope of applications [14, 15]. Silver is one of the most
important nanoparticles that have been augmented with poly-
mers. The biological route for AgNPs synthesis represents the
future environmentally friendly method, where other physical
and chemical methods use high amount of energy and toxic
solvents, causing limitations on the synthesized nanoparticles
biomedical applications [16]. AgNPs showed antibacterial
properties against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria
[17, 18]. In this paper we augmented biogenically synthesized
AgNPs with PVA and CS polymer matrices to synthesize
nanocomposite films then studied their antibacterial,
antibiofilm and cytotoxic activities.
Experimental
Biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles
Biologically synthesized AgNPs were previously prepared in
our lab [18] under light conditions using Enterobacter cloacae
Ism 26 (KP988024). Synthesized AgNPs solution was obtain-
ed in powder form by lyophilization using Edwards model
RV5, England.
Synthesis of PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites
PVA (alpha cheimeka, India) (10 g) was mixed with 90 ml
deionized water by magnetic stirring at 100 rev min−1 on a hot
plate at 90 °C for 3 h. Then, 0.1% (w/v) of biosynthesized
AgNPs were added and stirred for 4 h. Each 20 ml of the
resulted mixture was casted into a glass petri-dish and placed
in desiccator for 24 h. The plates were kept at 60 °C for 4 h to
remove any excess water or residuals [19]. Chitosan (alpha
cheimeka, India) (0.4 g) was added to 20 ml of acetic acid
(1%) and magnetically stirred for 1 h at 60 °C, then 0.1% (w/v)
of AgNPs was added and further stirred for 2 h. This mixture
was cast into a plastic petri-dish then put in oven at 60 °C for
16 h to remove any excess solvents [20]. These nanocompos-
ite films were used for further experiments and pure PVA and
CS films were used as control.
Characterization PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites
PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites films were tested for
their thermal stability using thermogravimetric analysis
(TGA) (SDT-Q600 Simultaneous TGA / DSC, USA). The
change in sample mass was recorded against a programmed
heating sequence from 20 to 400 °C in a nitrogen atmosphere
at a heating rate of 20 °C min−1. The presence and distribution
of AgNPs within PVA and CS nanocomposite were investi-
gated by SEM/EDX (JEOL JSM-5500 LV, Japan).
Nanocomposites films were cut into discs (6 mm diameter)
J Polym Res (2020) 27: 74
and AgNPs concentration per disc was recorded using Atomic
absorption spectroscopy (AAS) (Savant, GBC Scientific
equipment, Australia) at a cathode Ag lamp with wavelength
328.1 nm and Slit Width 0.2 nm [21], all measurements were
done thrice.
Antibacterial activity of PVA-Ag and CS-Ag
nanocomposites
The antibacterial activity of PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposite
were tested against ten multi drug resistant (MDR) bacteria kind-
ly provided by the International Medical Center, Microbiology
Laboratory, Cairo. The strains were three isolates of
Staphylococcus aureus (S.a 1, S.a 2 and S.a 3), one isolate of
Staphylococcus epidermidis (S.e 1), four isolates of Klebsiella
pneumoniae (K.p 1, K.p 2, K.p 3 and K.p 4) and two isolates
of Escherichia coli (E.c 1 and E.c 2). Discs (6 mm) of PVA, CS,
PVA-Ag, CS-Ag and AgNPs loaded on Whatman filter paper No
1 (20 μg AgNPs discs) were placed on Muller Hinton agar
(Oxoid Ltd., England) plates inoculated with 106 CFU ml−1 of
24 h bacterial culture then incubated at 37 °C for 24 h [16].
Antibiofilm activity
The ability of PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites to inhibit
biofilm formation was tested against strong biofilm forming
multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria. The control for this exper-
iment was PVA, CS and AgNPs (20 μg ml−1). The biofilm
forming bacteria were grown at 37 °C for 24 h in 10 ml tryptic
soy broth (TSB) (Merck, Germany) with 1% glucose. Then
200 μl of each diluted bacterium (1:100) were inoculated into
96 well microtitre plate previously containing nanocomposite
discs. The plates were incubated at 37 °C for 24 h at static
conditions. After incubation, each well was washed thrice with
phosphate buffer saline (pH 7.2) then left to dry for 30 min. at
room temperature. Crystal violet solution (200 μl of 0.1% w/v)
was added and left at room temperature for 30 min. Plates were
washed and left to dry for 30 min. Finally, 100 μl of ethanol
(96%) was added to each well to extract stained bound biofilm
and left for 30 min. The absorbance of crystal violet was mea-
sured at 490 nm by Microplate Reader (ELx808™ Absorbance,
Biotek, USA). Biofilm reduction was measured and compared
to control [22, 23]; also the percentage of inhibition was calcu-
lated using the following equation:
%of inhibition ¼ 1–ðOD of nanocomposite=OD of negative controlÞ  100 ð1Þ
OD of is the optical density of sample.
nanocomposite
OD of negative is the optical density of control biofilm
control forming bacteria.
J Polym Res (2020) 27: 74
Cytotoxicity (MTT- assay)
Cytotoxic effect of AgNPs solution, PVA-Ag and CS-Ag
nanocomposites was tested against cancer human liver
cells (Huh7) using a solution of 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-
thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT es-
say). Twelve dilutions of each sample were prepared
using two-fold dilution (25,000 μg ml−1 to
12.20 μg ml−1) and tested against Huh7 cell line in 96-
well plate (106 cells per well). Plates were incubated at
37 °C under 5% CO2 atmosphere for 24 h. After incuba-
tion, 50 μl MTT (5 mg ml−1) was added and incubated for
additional 6 h. Finally, the colored product (formazan)
was dissolved in 100 μl DMSO (0.1%) (Sigma–Aldrich,
StLouis, MO). Percentage of cells viability and IC 50
values (the inhibitory concentration needed to cause
50% cell death mm) were calculated by measuring the
absorbance of the MTT-treated cells at 570 nm using
Microplate Reader (ELx808™ Absorbance, Biotek,
USA) [24]. Untreated cells were used as control with
100% viability and percentage of cell viability was calcu-
lated using the following equation:
%o f cell viability
¼ ðAbsorbance o f sample=Absorbance of control cellsÞ
 100
ð2Þ
Statistical analysis
All experiments were performed thrice where n = 3 and results
were expressed as mean ± standard deviation (SD), one way
analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out using SPSS
software, where level of significant difference was set at
p < 0.05.
Results and discussion
Biosynthesis of AgNPs
AgNPs biosynthesized by Enterobacter cloacae Ism 26 were
spherical shaped with average size 15 nm (Fig. S1). These
AgNPs were augmented with PVA and CS polymers. PVA-
Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites had uniform dispersal of
brown color implying the uniform distribution of the AgNPs
throughout the polymer matrices (Figs. S2 and S3); this was
similar to previous studies carried out by Chandran et al. [25].
Page 3 of 9 74
Characterization of PVA-Ag and CS-Ag
nanocomposites
EDX and TGA analyses were used to characterize PVA-Ag
and CS-Ag nanocomposite films. EDX spectrum (Fig. 1a, b)
showed strong peaks of silver with high content of 59.71 ±
2.59 and 50.6 ± 0.24 atom % for PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nano-
composites, respectively. Carbon and nitrogen were excluded
to increase clarity of peaks. Small amounts of other elements,
such as copper, silica, aluminum and zinc were detected. PVA-
Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites can absorb and stabilize
AgNPs by the hydroxyl and amino groups present in PVA
and CS polymer structure [26, 27]. CS-Ag nanocomposite
showed relative higher AgNPs concentration trapped inside
the polymer matrix than that present in PVA-Ag nanocompos-
ite. This difference may be due to the variance in number
between AgNPs and functional groups present in PVA and
CS to stabilize, hydroxyl and amino groups, respectively
[26], furthermore the 3D structure of CS with its swelling
and expansion properties allowed more AgNPs to be trapped
in CS matrix [28]. EDX spectra of PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nano-
composites showed homogeneity and well distribution of
AgNPs indicating the ability of PVA and CS to act as excellent
hosts for AgNPs encapsulation [5].
Thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that PVA-Ag
and CS-Ag nanocomposites had higher thermal stability than
pure polymers (Fig. 1c, d). The onset temperature at 10%
weight loss of PVA-Ag nanocomposites was 11 °C higher
than that of pure PVA and at 20% weight loss, the difference
became 5 °C, in favor to PVA-Ag nanocomposite. However,
the peak temperature at 50% weight stayed the same for both
PVA and PVA-Ag nanocomposite. For CS-Ag nanocompos-
ite, at 10% weight loss, the onset temperature was 24 °C
higher than that of CS and at 20% weight loss, the difference
increased to 46 °C. The peak temperature at 50% weight was
38 °C higher for CS-Ag nanocomposite film. Consequently,
TGA results indicated that addition of AgNPs to PVA and CS
enhanced thermal stability and delayed thermal decomposi-
tion. CS-Ag nanocomposite showed higher thermal stability
and delayed thermal decomposition than PVA-Ag nanocom-
posite. This could be due to the higher AgNPs concentration
present in CS-Ag nanocomposite, this was also documented
by Ali et al. [29] and George et al. [26] who showed similar
findings. Other study conducted by González-Campos et al.
[30] demonstrated higher annealing temperature for PVA-Ag
nanocomposite using 5 wt% AgNPs. Augmentation of AgNPs
has interfered with polymer matrix chain and delayed the de-
composition process by suppressing or reducing PVA and CS
chains mobility, therefore reducing chains transfer and caus-
ing nanocomposite degradation at higher temperatures than
that of pure polymer [31]. Atomic absorption spectroscopy
analysis and standard curve measurements of PVA-Ag and
74 Page 4 of 9 J Polym Res (2020) 27: 74

Fig. 1 Characterization of nanocomposite: EDX analysis spectrum: (a) PVA-Ag nanocomposite (b) CS-Ag nanocomposite and TGA Curves: (c) PVA
film and PVA-Ag nanocomposite, (d) CS film and CS-Ag nanocomposite, showing their thermal stability

CS-Ag nanocomposites indicated that the concentration of
AgNPs augmented in 6 mm discs was 14 ± 2 and 21 ± 3 μg
per disc, respectively. Indicating that AgNPs concentration per
disc varies according to polymer type and the nanoparticles
ability to augment with polymer matrix.
Antimicrobial activity
The antimicrobial activity of pure PVA, CS, 20 μg AgNPs
discs and the nanocomposites (PVA-Ag and CS-Ag) were
tested against MDR bacteria using the disk agar diffusion
assay. PVA- Ag nanocomposite showed the highest significant
antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-
negative bacteria with a diameter of inhibition zones ranging
between 33 ± 3 and 21 ± 1 mm, followed by CS-Ag nanocom-
posite (14 ± 2 and 8 ± 0.5 mm) (Fig. 2). PVA-Ag and CS-Ag
nanocomposites demonstrated maximum activity against S.e
1. Meanwhile, minimum activity was detected against S.a 3
and K.p 2. AgNPs and antibiotics discs showed significantly
same values of inhibition against both Gram-positive and
Gram-negative bacteria. Control PVA discs showed well dif-
fusion through agar media with no antibacterial activity, sim-
ilar results were found by Zhang et al. [5], Aktürk et al. [32]
and Tripathi et al. [16]. However, control CS discs showed
antimicrobial activity against S.e 1 and S.a 1 (Gram-positive)
and K.p 4, E.c 1 and E.c 2 (Gram-negative) bacteria, with
inhibition zones diameter ranging from 12 ± 1 and 14 ±
2 mm (Table 1) but not significantly effective as CS-Ag
J Polym Res (2020) 27: 74 Page 5 of 9 74

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e) (f)

Fig. 2 Antimicrobial activity of CS-Ag and PVA-Ag nanocomposites PVA-Ag nanocomposite and pure PVA discs before incubation (d) and
against MDR bacteria, showing CS-Ag nanocomposite and pure CS discs after incubation against S.a 3 (e), E.c 1 (f)
before incubation (a) and after incubation against S.a 2 (b), S.a 3(c), and

nanocomposite, similar to previous studies conducted by to different factors such as size, shape and concentration of
Thaya et al. [33] and Kalaivani et al. [7]. Antibacterial activity nanoparticles [34, 35]. AgNPs synthesized in this study had an
of PVA-Ag, CS-Ag nanocomposites and AgNPs discs against average size of 15 nm and Park et al. [36] indicated that small
Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria could be attributed sized AgNPs can cause antibacterial activity by penetrating

Table 1 Showing inhibition zones diameter against different MDR bacteria

S.e 1 S.a 1 S.a 2 S.a 3 K.p 1 K.p 2 K.p 3 K.p 4 E.c 1 E.c 2

Inhibition zone (mm)

PVA-Ag nanocomposite 33 ± 3a 29 ± 1a 26 ± 1a 21 ± 1a 28.5 ± 0.5a 23.5 ± 1.5a 26 ± 1a 24 ± 1.5a 23 ± 1.5a 23 ± 2.5a
PVA 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
CS-Ag nanocomposite 14 ± 2b 12.5 ± 1.5b 8 ± 0.5c 10.5 ± 0.5b 11.5 ± 0.5c 0 11.5 ± 0.5b 12 ± 1b 13 ± 1b 12 ± 1b
CS 12.5 ± 2.5c 12 ± 1b 0 0 0 0 0 12 ± 2b 14 ± 2b 13 ± 1.5b
AgNPs Disc (20 μg) 8.5 ± 0.5d 12 ± 1b 13 ± 1b 12 ± 2b 16 ± 1.5b 14 ± 2b 15 ± 1b 14 ± 1b 11 ± 0.5c 13.5 ± 0.5b
Levofloxacin 13 ± 1cd 12 ± 2b 14 ± 3b 11 ± 3b 11 ± 2d 9 ± 1c 8 ± 2c 9 ± 1c 12 ± 1.5c 12 ± 2b
Vancomycin 11 ± 1d 12 ± 1.5b 12 ± 2b 10 ± 1.5b NA NA NA NA NA NA
Erythromycin 11 ± 2d 10 ± 1b 12 ± 2b 12 ± 1.5b NA NA NA NA NA NA
Imipenem NA NA NA NA 13 ± 2d 12 ± 1.5b 13 ± 2.5b 11 ± 2c 10 ± 2c 10 ± 1.5b

PVA: polyvinyl alcohol, CS: Chitosan, S. e: Staphylococcus epidermidis, S. a: Staphylococcus aureus, k. p: Klebsiella pneumonia, E. coli: Esherichia
coli, NA: not applied, results calculated are means ± SD, a-d superscript means are statistically significance at p˂0.05, control vs. treated
74 Page 6 of 9
the cell membrane or attaching to the cell membrane surface
and disturbing its function. PVA-Ag nanocomoposite highest
significant activity of could be explained by its solubility,
better diffusion through agar and continuous release of
AgNPs of PVA films across the medium, carrying AgNPs to
further extent and causing larger inhibition zones, as explained
by Radheshkumar and Mu [37]; Zhang et al. [5]. Similar re-
sults were recorded against Salmonella typhimurium [16],
E.coli and S. aureus [5, 32]. Patil et al. [19] suggested that
nanocomposites have higher antibacterial activity compared
to nanoparticles alone due to the polymer’s ability to contin-
uously release Ag in the surrounding medium. This can ex-
plain the significant high inhibition values recorded by PVA-
Ag nanocomposite in this study compared to AgNPs discs.
CS-Ag nanocomposite showed lower antibacterial activity
displayed by smaller inhibition zones; however, Kumar-
Krishnan et al. [20] showed that CS-Ag nanocomposite ex-
hibited high bactericidal activity against S. aureus and E. coli.
Other studies showed that CS tend to aggregate and trap nano-
particles inside its structure leading to lower efficacy against
bacterial isolates [38, 39]. Nanocomposites showed stronger
antibacterial activity against Gram-positive bacteria compared
to Gram-negative bacteria due to the difference in their cell
wall structure [40], where lipopolysaccharides present in the
Gram-negative bacteria cell wall can block some antimicrobi-
al agents from passing or attaching to cell wall, therefore
preventing bacterial cell death [14, 41, 42].
Antibiofilm activity
PVA-Ag, CS-Ag nanocomposites, PVA, CS and AgNPs were
tested for their antibiofilm activity against five bacterial iso-
lates (S.e 1, S.a 1, K.p 2, E.c 1 and E.c 2) that showed the
highest significant biofilm formation. PVA films showed no
antibiofilm activity against all tested biofilm forming bacteria;
however, CS showed significant higher antibiofilm activity
Fig. 3 Antibiofilm activity (a) PVA-Ag nanocomposite and (b) CS-Ag nanocomposite against MDR bacteria. Results expressed as mean ± SD (*)
P˂0.05 vs. control
J Polym Res (2020) 27: 74
against S.e 1, S.a 1, K.p 2 and E.c 1. PVA-Ag, CS-Ag nano-
composites and AgNPs showed antibiofilm activity against all
tested biofilm forming bacteria (Fig. 3). Augmentation of PVA
or CS with AgNPs showed significant inhibition of biofilm
formation. PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposite, showed sig-
nificantly the same percentage of biofilm inhibition against S.e
1 (92% and 90%) and S.a 1 (78% and 76%), respectively.
While, against K.p 2, E.c 1 and E.c 2; nanocomposites showed
inhibition percentages ranging from 71 to 77% and 54–62%.
PVA-Ag, CS-Ag nanocomposite and AgNPs showed signifi-
cant high percentages of antibiofilm activity against Gram-
positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Similarly previous stud-
ies demonstrated high antibiofim activity against
S. epidermidis, P. aeruginosa and E.coli [32, 43, 44]. The
continuous release of AgNPs from CS-Ag and PVA-Ag nano-
composites can explain their antibiofilm activity, where they
inhibit exopolysaccharide synthesis, which represents the bac-
terial main defense system in biofilm forming bacteria [28,
45]. Furthermore, AgNPs concentration in nanocomposites
play an important role in biofilm inhibition percentage where
its directly proportional to antibiofilm activity [15, 46].
Consequently the use of PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites
is suggested as early stage preventive agents against biofilm
formation during healing stages. This was also reported by
Abdelgawad et al. [47] who used a combination of CS-PVA-
Ag nanocomposite in wound treatment.
Cytotoxicity (MTT) assay
PVA-Ag, CS-Ag nanocomposites and AgNPs were tested for
their cytotoxic activity using MTT assay. Percentage of cell
viability showed an inverse relation with tested samples con-
centration. The cell viability increased as the concentrations of
PVA-Ag, CS-Ag and AgNPs decreased till reaching the IC50
(Fig. 4). IC 5 0 was found to be 263.20 μg ml − 1 ,
1185.07 μg ml−1 and 119.85 μg ml−1 for biogenic AgNPs,
J Polym Res (2020) 27: 74
Fig. 4 Cytotoxic effect of
biogenic AgNPs and PVA-Ag,
CS-Ag nanocmoposites against
human liver cell line (Huh-7)
using MTT assay. Results
expressed as mean ± SD (P˂0.05
vs. control)
PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposites, respectively. It was ob-
vious that the IC50 of PVA-Ag nanocomposite was significant-
ly higher than that of CS-AgNPs and but less significant to
that of AgNPs. These results indicated that PVA-Ag nanocom-
posite had the lowest significant cytotoxicity against Huh-7
cell line and the highest IC50 value, indicating high biosafety,
compared to other samples. Cytotoxic activity of AgNPs and
nanocomposites on different human cells is essential for their
biomedical applications. Other studied showed lower IC50
values and higher lethal concentrations against different ani-
mal [24, 48] and human cells [28, 49–51]. Cytotoxic activity
can be related to different factors such as type of cells tested,
nanoparticles size, nanoparticles synthesis method, nanoparti-
cle aggregation rate and type of polymer used in nanocompos-
ite [45, 52].
Conclusion
PVA-Ag and CS-Ag nanocomposite films were synthesized
by augmentation with biosynthesized AgNPs, using
Enterobacter cloacae Ism 26 (KP988024). PVA-Ag and CS-
Ag nanocomposites showed higher thermal stability than pure
PVA and CS films. AgNPs showed homogenous dispersion
through PVA and CS matrices, preventing the nanoparticles
from aggregation. These nanocomposites films enhanced sig-
nificantly the antimicrobial and antibiofilm activities of
AgNPs causing efficient eradication of bacterial and biofilm
growth of multi drug resistant clinical isolates.
Nanocomposites showed significant low cytotoxicity against
Huh-7 liver cells. These results highlighted the enhanced bio-
logical activities of nanocomposites using biogenically syn-
thesized nanoparticles and biodegradable polymers, helping in
the usage of environmentally friendly, nontoxic PVA-Ag and
CS-Ag nanocomposite films in many biomedical and indus-
trial applications.
Page 7 of 9 74
Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of
Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The authors have no conflict of interest in publishing
this manuscript.
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