Silver- and selenium-containing bioactive nanosystems based on zosterin and methylcellulose

Atomic-force (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used for determination of the morphological and dimensional characteristics of hybrid polymer nanosystems (HPNS) based on nanoparticles (NPs) of zero-valent selenium and zero-valent silver stabilized by zosterin and methylcellulose (MC). The possibility of controlling the morphological and dimensional characteristics of the HPNS by varying the nature of the NP and the biocompatible polymeric stabilizer (BPS) was established. Using UV-spectroscopy method, the fact of formation of the NP in a zero-valence state in an aqueous solution of the silver- and selenium-containing HPNS based on zosterin and MC was founded. It is shown that selenium-containing HPNS based on the selected BPS are formed by the steric mechanism of stabilization. On the contrary, for silver-containing HPNS—zosterin/Ag0 and MC/Ag0, an electrosteric stabilization mechanism takes place. By the AFM method, it was found that selenium-containing nanostructures for both BPS have a spherical morphology; for silver-containing nanostructures, the type of morphology depends on the nature of the selected BPS: the spherical morphology is observed in the MC/Ag0 nanosystems, and the “comb-like cords” filled with spherical nanostructures—for zosterin/Ag0 HPNS. It was established that silver-containing nanostructures have smaller sizes than selenium-containing nanostructures, which, apparently, is due to the greater degree of hydrophobicity of selenium NP in comparison with silver NP. A similar trend is observed for selenium- and silver-containing nanoclusters.