Synthesis, characterization, cytotoxicity and antioxidant properties of silver nanoparticles immobilized on keratin/hypericum based carboxymethyl cellulose microbeads

Metal nanoparticles are widely used in many fields such as chemistry, biology and materials science due to their superior optical, physical and biological activities. In particular, in recent years, there has been an increased interest in the use of metal nanoparticles in biomedical applications due to their antibacterial, antifungal and biocompatibility properties. However, silver nanoparticles tend to agglomerate during synthesis, which has a negative impact on their activity. This problem can be overcome by depositing metal nanoparticles on ideal solid supports with large surface area and strong interaction with metals. For this, there is a need to develop ideal solid support materials. In this thesis, carboxymethyl cellulose/ cornflower keratin-based microbeads (CMC/Ht/FK) were synthesized for the first time as a support material to eliminate the agglomeration/agglomeration problems of silver nanoparticles. Silver nanoparticles (Ag@CMC/Ht/FK) were then deposited on the synthesized polymeric composite support material. The chemical and morphological structures of the fabricated biomaterials were characterized by FT-IR, FE-SEM, EDX, XRD and TEM techniques. In addition, their biological activities were calculated using antioxidant assay and cell culture assays and in vitro cell scratch tests were applied to the materials with the best antioxidant activity. As a result of the studies, the highest antioxidant activity was found for Ag@CMC/Ht/FK nanoparticles (88.04%) added to 1 g keratin. According to TEM results, the size of Ag nanoparticles was determined to be 14 nm. None of the extracts produced showed cytotoxicity. Cell scratch test was performed at 3 doses showing the best cell viability and the in vitro wound healing activity of Ag@CMC/Ht/FK was determined to be better than CMC/Ht/FK.