Silver oxide coatings deposited on leathers to prevent diabetic foot infections

Diabetic foot is one of the most serious complications of diabetes, the appearance of foot ulcers is highly susceptible to the prevalence of infections. In this sense, thin films of silver (Ag) and silver oxide (AgOx) were deposited by the dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique on different leather substrates for application in insoles and/or footwear inside in order to functionalize them, thus promoting antibacterial properties. A detailed characterization is described to the uncoated and coated leathers.. Cytotoxicity and antimicrobial activity were evaluated and, a silver antimicrobial mechanism was suggested. Among the uncoated and coated leathers, AgOx modified samples have higher CoF indicating that this coating can permit higher immobilization of the foot in relation to the skin. The AgOx coating has also impressive antibacterial and antifungal activity without causing any cytotoxic effect, suggesting the potential application of AgOx modified leathers to diabetic specialized footwear.This research is sponsored by FEDER funds through the COMPETE program - Competitive Factors Operational Program - and by national funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology - within the scope of the UIDB/00285/2020 project, under the scope of the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020 unit and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER 000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte, ATRITO-0 (co-financed via FEDER (PT2020) POCI-01-545 0145-FEDER-030446 and FCT (PIDDAC)); DiabetICC (co-financed via FEDER (PT2020) POCI-01-0247-FEDER-039784).