Biocompatibility and Antimicrobial Investigation of Agar-Tannic Acid Hydrogel Reinforced with Silk Fibroin and Zinc Manganese Oxide Magnetic Microparticles

Herein, a three-dimensional cross-linked hydrogel was synthesized based on agarose (Agr) and tannic acid (TA) biopolymers which are cross-linked with Zn 2+ ions. Also, the extracted silk fibroin (SF) and zinc manganese oxide (ZnMn 2 O 4 ) magnetic microparticles were added to the composite to be utilized in biomedical applications. It was aimed to prepare a biocomposite based on the natural materials due to their various biological characteristics owing to their less toxicity and reduced hemolysis. Therefore, this novel biocomposite scaffold (Agr-TA/SF/ZnMn 2 O 4 ) demonstrated desirable biological capacity characterized by cell viability approach, hemolysis assay, and anti-biofilm activity. Due to the cell viability test results, after 3 and 7 days, the viability of the Hu02 cell in the presence of Agr-TA/SF/ZnMn 2 O 4 scaffold was 95.38% and 93.83%, respectively. Since the hemolytic activity below 5% is considered hemocompatible, the prepared biocomposite with 4.97% hemolytic activity is totally hemocompatible. Moreover, according to the considerable anti-biofilm activity, along with restraining the P. aeruginosa biofilm formation, this cross-linked hydrogel has been administrated as an excellent candidate for biological applications. Graphical Abstract