Antimicrobial performance of nanostructured silica-titania sieves loaded with izohidrafural against microbial strains isolated from urinary tract infections

This study aimed to examine the efficiency of novel bioactive nanostructures represented by silica-titania sieves used as carriers for a new antibacterial agent izohidrafural against bacterial strains isolated from nosocomial urinary tract infections, by using biological quantitative assays. Several release trials have been established and compared with MCM-41 in parallel experiments to achieve the optimum release profile. The obtained systems showed that silica-titania sieves loaded with izohidrafural proved to be the most active material against Klebsiella pneumoniae (average minimal inhibitory concentration [MIC] 40.62 μg/mL), desaminase-positive strains (average MIC 2.925 μg/mL), and Proteus mirabilis (average MIC 9.37 μg/mL), the last being reported with the highest growth rate in the urinary tract catheters. In contrast, the nonloaded silica-titanium sieves exhibited the highest antimicrobial activity against the Gram-positive cocci. Izohidrafural exhibited the highest antimicrobial efficiency, superior to the common drug nitrofurantoin against most Escherichia coli strains, with average MIC of 4.68 μg/mL.

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