Antibacterial and non-cytotoxic ultra-thin polyethylenimine film

•Synthesis of an ultra-thin film of PEI with a thickness of 3.5 nm and a flat roughness of 1 nm.•Surface physicochemical properties of the PEI film was studied and well correlated with their obtained biological properties.•The obtained PEI film was non-cytotoxic for fibroblasts and presented antibacterial activity.

In recent years, a common strategy, to obtain more uniform and controlled synthesis of polyelectrolytes multilayers (PEMs), relies on a previous polyethylenimine (PEI) coating of the substrate surface. PEI is a synthetic cationic polymer which provides a positive charge distribution on the materials to be covered with PEMs. Despite being an important step, this pre-layer deposition is frequently overlooked and no comprehensive characterizations or deep discussions are reported in literature. In that sense, this work reports on the synthesis of a typical PEI film that works as a precursor for PEMs, and its detailed physicochemical characterization. As many PEMs are produced for antibacterial and biomedical applications, the cytotoxicity of the film was also tested using fibroblasts, and its antibacterial activity was studied using Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Our results present the formation of an ultra-thin film of PEI with a thickness around 3.5 nm, and with a significant percent of NH3+ (35% of the total amount of N) in its chemical structure; NH3+ is a key chemical group because it is considered an important bacterial killer agent. The film was stable and did not present important cytotoxic effect for fibroblasts up to 7 days, contrary to other reports. Finally, the PEI film showed high antibacterial activity against the S. aureus strain: reductions in cell density were higher than 95% up to 24 h.

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