Liu, Sai;
Weston, Andrew;
Satta, Giovanni;
Bolognini, Sara;
Di Luca, Mariagrazia;
Gaisford, Simon;
Williams, Gareth R;
(2026)
Enhanced anti-P. aeruginosa treatment via phage and ciprofloxacin co-loaded particles prepared by electrospraying.
Biomaterials Advances
, 180
, Article 214531. 10.1016/j.bioadv.2025.214531.
Preview |
Text
Williams_1-s2.0-S2772950825003589-main.pdf Download (11MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a critical global health challenge, contributing to an estimated 1.27 million deaths worldwide due to bacterial infections in 2019. Phages offer a possible solution to this, but alone have been found to be sub-optimal. There can however be great benefits in combining antibiotics and phages to give synergistic treatment. To that end, this study incorporates both ciprofloxacin (cipro) and phages into co-loaded microparticles prepared by electrospraying (ES). With optimized concentrations (0.25 wt% cipro and 50 % v/v phage stock), the resulting phage encapsulation efficiency (EE) reached 29 ± 3 %. Following electrospraying, a modest reduction in phage titer was observed, from 5 × 107 to 1.4 × 107 PFU/mg, suggesting good preservation of phage viability during the electrospraying process. The cipro loading reached 0.20 ± 0.01 %, with an EE of 79.9 ± 2.2 %. In addition to spherical morphology and efficient phage loading, the particles exhibited a rapid initial release of their therapeutic cargo, achieving 98.8 ± 4.0 % of phage release and 93.5 ± 7.0 % of cipro release within 10 min. The combination of half the minimum heat inhibition concentration (MHIC) of cipro (0.3 μg/ml) and 108 PFU/ml phages completely inhibited the growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) over 30 h, and a co-loaded particle concentration of 333 μg/ml extended bacterial inhibition for over 40 h. The results provide meaningful guidance for the design and optimization of antibiotic- and phage-loaded microparticles as potential antibacterial formulations for the treatment of bacterial infections.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Enhanced anti-P. aeruginosa treatment via phage and ciprofloxacin co-loaded particles prepared by electrospraying |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.bioadv.2025.214531 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioadv.2025.214531 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Electrospraying, Anti-microbial resistance, Drug delivery, Phages, Ciprofloxacin |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy > Pharmaceutics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10215359 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
