Production of cotton fabrics with durable antibacterial property by using gum tragacanth and silver

•Cotton fabrics with strong anti-bacterial properties using gum tragacanth (GT)/silver colloid was prepared.•Combination of GT with Ag produced better antibacterial activity.•Treated cotton with GT-4%/Ag indicated proper tensile strength and stiffness.•The percentage of cell proliferation results showed that GT-Ag treated samples did not show any toxicity after passing 72 h. A simple and inexpensive procedure has been devised to prepare antibacterial cotton fabric using silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and bio degradable gum tragacanth (GT). For this, different concentrations of GT (2, 4 and 6 g/L) along with a constant amount of Ag (5%; according to weight of dry GT used in the solutions) were applied to investigate the efficacy of antibacterial potency against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and their effect on physical, mechanical and biological characteristics of cotton fabric. Our study exhibited the presence of small amount of AgNPs in the composite structure was enough to increase the antibacterial activity of fabrics compared to fabric that were treated by only GT. Moreover, the treated cotton with GT-4%/Ag indicated proper tensile strength and stiffness compared to treated fabric with GT-6%/Ag composite. The biocompatibility of the GT and GT/Ag treated fabrics was verified through MTT assay on fibroblast cells.