Table 5.

Selected relevant pre-clinical assays based on novel drug-loaded polymeric nanoparticles for the treatment of bacterial skin infections

Bacteria	Loaded molecule	Polymeric matrix	Surface modifications	Dose	Admin. route	In vitro/In vivo model	Results	Ref
Staphylococcus aureus	clindamycin	PEI/PLGA	–	0.1–0.5 mg/mL	Incubation	MRSA	Cly/PPNPs enhance bactericidal efficacy against MRSA compared with the Cly/PNPs Cly/PPNPs significantly accelerate the healing and re-epithelialization of wounds in infected mice Both NPs are harmless to healthy fibroblast cells	Hasan et al. [95]
				0.5 mg/ml	Topically applied	ICR mice
Pseudomonas aeruginosa	PDH	PLGA	–	125 μL of PNPs	Incubation	Biofilms PAO1	The optimal formulation disperses biofilms and exhibits enzymatic activity	Han et al. [96]
Staphylococcus epidermidis	Propolis	Chitosan	–	100 μg/mL of PNPs	Incubation	S. epidermidis strain ATCC 14,990	PNPs effectively disrupt biofilm formation of S. epidermidis and decrease its viability to ~ 25% Gene expression in treated bacteria shows that genes involved in intercellular adhesion such as IcaABCD, embp and other related genes are significantly downregulated by PNPs exposure	Ong et al. [98]
Staphylococcus epidermidis	Imidazolium cations	PLGA	Chitosan	1 mg PNPs/well	Incubation	LIVE/DEAD kit	PNPs show a high antibacterial activity to the bacterial cells under the biofilm	Takahashi et al. [99]

LIVE/DEAD LIVE/DEAD BacLight bacterial viability kit (Cat. Num. L-13152), MRSA methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, PDH pyruvate dehydrogenase