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Travan A, Marsich E et al. Acta Biomaterialia 2011; 7: 337–346

An overarching aim is to develop an antimicrobial coating for the methacrylic thermoset BisGMA/TEGDMA, yet at the same time one that is not cytotoxic. A candidate material is silver. Among other properties, silver is antimicrobial and can form nanoparticles that have a large surface activity. These investigators have previously reported coating discs of BisGMA/TEGDMA with a polysaccharide film in order to immobilise accessible silver nanoparticles. Using such coated discs, they measured the antimicrobial efficacy against a strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. They found that the bacterial strains were 'effectively inactivated' by the nanocomposite coating. The investigators also carried out in vitro cytotoxicity against a range of cell lines using the lactate dehydrogenase assay. They showed that coated discs 'did not exert any significant cytotoxicity.'