Lactic acid

The 2-Hydroxyethyl cellulose (Mn: ~90,000 g/mol) was purchased from Sigma Aldrich CO (St. Louis, MO, USA). Acetone, glycerin, and lactic acid were purchased from Daejung Chemical and Metals (Siheung, Republic of Korea). Polypropylene prefilter which pore sizes of 0.6 μm was purchased from Merck Millipore Ltd. (Darmstadt, Germany) All chemicals were used as received.

The COR-Ex was prepared from Cordyceps mushrooms cultured in our laboratory. Sea buckthorn oil (fruit oil) was obtained from Inner Mongolia, China. Lactic acid, NaOH, and HCl were purchased from Dae-Jung Chemical Co., Siheung-si, Korea. An ultrasonic probe (3000, Newtown, CT, USA, probe diameter 3 mm), Tween 80, and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St Louis, MO, USA). Fetal bovine serum (FBS) and penicillin-streptomycin solution were purchased from Gen DEPOT (Barker, TX, USA). High-glucose Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium (DMEM) with pyruvate was purchased from Gibco (Waltham, MA, USA). MTT solution was bought from Life Technologies (Eugene, OR, USA). Chitosan from crab shell (85%, deacylated) was collected from Sigma (Cat. No. C36462). Neomycin (30 μg/disk) antibiotic disks were obtained from Becton Dickinson, and Company (Seoul, Korea). The Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC6538) and Escherichia coli (BL-21) strains were cultured at 37 °C on nutrient agar media purchased from Difco, MB Cell, Seoul, Korea, and stored at −70 °C in glycerol stock vials for future experiments. Standard Neomycin 30 (NEO30) discs were purchased from Oxoid Ltd. (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea).

Cadmium nitrate (Cd(NO₃)₂.4H₂O), ethylene diamine (C₂H₈N₂), Thiourea (CH₄N₂S), lactic acid (C₃H₆O₃), and triethanol amine (C₆H₁₅NO₃) were purchased from Daejung Chemicals Co., Ltd. All chemicals were used directly without any further purification. Double distilled (DI) water was used for solution making purposes throughout the experiments.