Poster K15 - Antimicrobial Activity and Biocompatibility of Printed Alginate and Honey Mesh

Thursday, October 24, 2024

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST

Location: Exhibit Hall E, F & G

Presenting Author(s)

Conor Nowak (he/him/his)

Student
Lawrence Technological University
West Seneca , New York, United States

Co-Author(s)

SZ

Sandra Zori

Scientific Communications Specialist
Med Communications, United States
YL

Yawen Li, PhD

Associate Professor and Chair, Biomedical Engineering Department, Lawrence Technological University
Lawrence Technological University
Southfield, Michigan, United States

Last Author(s)

Julie Zwiesler-Vollick, PhD (she/her/hers)

Associate Professor of Biology
Department of Natural Sciences, Lawrence Technological University
Southfield, Michigan, United States

Introduction: Skin is one of our primary protective barriers to infection. However, that barrier can be breached, resulting in wounds. Wound healing is a process which takes time, and as we age this process becomes even slower. We have developed an extrusion based printing process to create alginate/honey scaffolds. We hypothesize that an appropriate honey concentration and optimized printing condition will lead to a scaffold with sufficient antimicrobial activity while also promoting cell adhesion and proliferation. Such a scaffold is expected to enhance healing of skin wounds.

Materials and

Methods: We have developed a bioactive dressing mesh by printing a mixture of alginate and honey and using calcium chloride to induce crosslinking and stabilization of the printed structure. Honey is known to be antimicrobial and will help protect the healing wound from microbial infection. Staphylococcus aureus (the causal agent of Staph infections) was used to assess the antimicrobial activity of the printed scaffolds. The alginate concentration and printing parameters were tested with the goal to achieve consistent 4-layer mesh structure. Mouse fibroblasts were seeded on printed mesh for in vitro biocompatibility evaluation. Cell viability and proliferation was measured using an alamar blue assay.

Results, Conclusions, and Discussions: Results and Discussion
The antimicrobial study showed that honey concentrations greater than 80% inhibited the growth of Staphylococcus aureus (Fig. 1). Several combinations of alginate concentrations and processing parameters were tested and all led to reproducible mesh scaffolds. Our preliminary biocompatibility study showed slightly lower fibroblast attachment and activity to the scaffolds compared to cover glass controls. However, there was clear proliferation of cells on the scaffolds after two weeks in culture (Fig 2).
Conclusions
Printing alginate/honey provides a promising tissue engineering approach to repair skin wounds. Our study found that the honey concentration needs to be at least 80% in order to inhibit bacterial growth. The printed alginate/honey mesh showed acceptable biocompatibility with fibroblasts. Ongoing work is to measure the bioink viscosity to further optimize the alginate concentration and printing conditions. We are also evaluating sterilization methods which will not disrupt the antimicrobial activity or structure of the bioprinted scaffold to further improve its biocompatibility.

Acknowledgements (Optional):