Caprolactam-silica network, a strong potentiator of the antimicrobial activity of kanamycin against gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial strains.

Here, we report the fabrication of a novel ε-caprolactam-silica (ε-SiO2) network and assessed its biocompatibility and ability to improve the antimicrobial activity of kanamycin. The results of the quantitative antimicrobial assay demonstrate that the obtained ε-SiO2 network has efficiently improved the kanamycin activity on Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 and Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 strains, with a significant decrease of the minimum inhibitory concentration. The ε-SiO2 network could be feasibly obtained and represents an alternative for the design of new antibiotic drug carriers or delivery systems to control bacterial infections.