The
cellular mechanism underlying bacteria responses to silver
nanoparticles (AgNPs) has not been fully elucidated. Especially, it
is difficult to distinguish the contact killing from release killing
as Ag+ releases from AgNPs. In this paper, AgNPs gradient
was designed for evaluating the size effect of AgNPs on contact killing.
A size gradient of AgNPs (5–45 nm) was achieved on TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) by rational design of bipolar electrochemical
reaction, including applied voltage, electrolyte concentration, and
sample size. High-throughput investigation of cellular responses showed
that the smallest AgNPs were the most efficient in suppressing bacteria
whereas the largest AgNPs were more favorable for MC3T3-E1 cell adhesion
and proliferation. As Ag+ concentration was the same for
the entire gradient, the difference in cellular responses was dominated
by the contact effect (rather than difference in released Ag+) which was tuned by AgNPs size. This method offers new prospect
for efficient evaluation of the contact effect of nanoparticles, such
as Ag, Au, and Cu.