6th Clinical Microbiology Conference

Biography

Biography: Patricia Alexandra Curado Quintas Dinis Poeta

Abstract

The aim of this study is to synthesize and investigate the antibacterial properties of functionalized AgNPs-TET and AuNPs-TET complexes, evaluating their antimicrobial effect on antibiotic resistant bacteria with public health concerning. Strains tested were E. coli ST648 and S. aureus ST398, both resistant to tetracycline, and the control strains E. coli K12 and S. aureus ATCC 25923, susceptible to tetracycline. MIC and MBC tests were performed on LB medium. Control cultures without nanoparticles and/or tetracycline were included in all experiments. Our results are supported by innumerous previous studies reporting that AgNPs are exquisite bactericides and, as AuNPs, they both are suitable antibiotic carriers (Brown et al., 2012; Li et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2014). Nevertheless, direct comparisons between our results from other studies are difficult because the physicochemical properties of nanoparticles used differ, since the functionalization of nanoparticles in this study was made in aqueous phase instead of silica matrix, and the protocols to assess antimicrobial activity diverge among studies. We compared the potential of AuNPs and AgNPs used as tetracycline delivery systems and showed evidences that both agents succeed on inhibiting bacterial growth. Also, AgNPs functionalized with tetracycline had an inhibitory and bactericidal ability even against Gram-negative and Gram-positive tetracycline-resistant bacteria. The functionalization of nanoparticles with antibiotics could be a potent prospective therapeutic method to overcome infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Future studies should focus on functionalization of nanoparticles with other antibiotics, testing their antimicrobial efficiency against a broader spectrum of pathogens, prevention on biofilm formation on in vivo and in inert substrates.