Polyphenols and bioactive glass: a smart couple against cancer

Polyphenols are natural molecules with selective cytotoxic activity against cancer cells and, on the opposite, stimulating activity on healthy ones . Poor bioavailability and stability are actually their main drawbacks for their application in the medical field but there are key points for the improvement of their effectiveness. Surface functionalization is a promising strategy to combine the properties of biomaterials with those of polyphenols in order to guarantee an adequate amount of active molecules at the desired site. Bioactive glasses are materials of choice for bone contact applications due to their ability to chemically bind to bone and stimulate its regeneration. In this research work a silica based bioactive glass (CEL2) [3] was used as substrate and gallic acid (GA), as model molecule and natural extracts of green tea leaves (TPH) and red grape skins (GPH) as natural polyphenols for the surface functionalization. The grafting procedure was optimized in previous works of the authors