Fructose Enhanced Reduction of Bacterial Growth on Nanorough Surfaces
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Fructose Enhanced Reduction of Bacterial Growth on Nanorough Surfaces N. Gozde Durmus1, Erik N. Taylor1, Kim M. Kummer1 and Thomas J. Webster1,2 1 2
School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA 02912 Department of Chemical Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA 02215
ABSTRACT Biofilms are a major source of medical device-associated infections, due to their persistent growth and antibiotic resistance. Recent studies have shown that engineering surface nanoroughness has great potential to create antibacterial surfaces. In addition, stimulation of bacterial metabolism increases the efficacy of antibacterial agents to eradicate biofilms. In this study, we combined the antibacterial effects of nanorough topographies with metabolic stimulation (i.e., fructose metabolites) to further decrease bacterial growth on polyvinyl chloride (PVC) surfaces, without using antibiotics. We showed for the first time that the presence of fructose on nanorough PVC surfaces decreased planktonic bacteria growth and biofilm formation after 24 hours. Most importantly, a 60% decrease was observed on nanorough PVC surfaces soaked in a 10 mM fructose solution compared to conventional PVC surfaces. In this manner, this study demonstrated that bacteria growth can be significantly decreased through the combined use of fructose and nanorough surfaces and thus should be further studied for a wide range of antibacterial applications. INTRODUCTION Medical devices (such as catheters, renal dialysis shunts, endotracheal tubes) have become an integral part of healthcare. While these devices are used in many areas of medicine for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, device-associated infections as well as device-associated hospital infections have been a critical concern for many years.[1-4] Contamination of a medical device usually occurs by inoculation with only a few microorganisms from the skin or mucous membranes of the patient during implantation. In addition, the presence of pathogens could be due to in-hospital contamination since they are usually acquired from the hands of the surgical or clinical staff.[5-7] Between 5 and 10% of patients admitted to acute-care hospitals usually acquire one or more infections.[3] Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) are acknowledged worldwide as the most frequent adverse event in health care. HAIs affect approximately 2 million patients each year in the United States, result in up to 100,000 excess deaths, and lead to an estimated cost to the U.S. health care system of more than $35 billion per year.[3, 4] Thus, infection control is critical for patient safety and there exists an urgent need for innovative studies to develop infection prevention strategies in the clinical settings. Biofilms are a major source of HAIs due to their persistent growth on medical devices and surfaces. For example, patients on mechanical ventilators for extended periods of time often face the risk of developing ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), an infection in the lung of patients. [8] This is due to
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