Journal article
Cationic microbubbles for non-selective binding of cavitation nuclei to bacterial biofilms
- Abstract:
-
The presence of multi-drug resistant biofilms in chronic, persistent infections is a major barrier to successful clinical outcomes of therapy. The production of an extracellular matrix is a characteristic of the biofilm phenotype, intrinsically linked to antimicrobial tolerance. The heterogeneity of the extracellular matrix makes it highly dynamic, with substantial differences in composition between biofilms, even in the same species. This variability poses a major challenge in targeting drug delivery systems to biofilms, as there are few elements both suitably conserved and widely expressed across multiple species. However, the presence of extracellular DNA within the extracellular matrix is ubiquitous across species, which alongside bacterial cell components, gives the biofilm its net negative charge. This research aims to develop a means of targeting biofilms to enhance drug delivery by developing a cationic gas-filled microbubble that non-selectively targets the negatively charged biofilm. Cationic and uncharged microbubbles loaded with different gases were formulated and tested to determine their stability, ability to bind to negatively charged artificial substrates, binding strength, and, subsequently, their ability to adhere to biofilms. It was shown that compared to their uncharged counterparts, cationic microbubbles facilitated a significant increase in the number of microbubbles that could both bind and sustain their interaction with biofilms. This work is the first to demonstrate the utility of charged microbubbles for the non-selective targeting of bacterial biofilms, which could be used to significantly enhance stimuli-mediated drug delivery to the bacterial biofilm.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 3.7MB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.3390/pharmaceutics15051495
Authors
- Publisher:
- MDPI
- Journal:
- Pharmaceutics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 15
- Issue:
- 5
- Article number:
- 1495
- Publication date:
- 2023-05-13
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-05-12
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1999-4923
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1343491
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1343491
- Deposit date:
-
2023-05-21
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- LuTheryn et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record