Surface chemistry of nanobiomaterials with antimocrobial properties

MEBERT ANDREA MATHILDE; VILLANUEVA MARÍA EMILIA; PAOLO N. CATALANO; COPELLO GUILLERMO JAVIER; BELLINO MARTIN; ALVAREZ GISELA SOLANGE; DESIMONE MARTIN FEDERICO

Surface chemistry of nanobiomaterials

Elsevier

Año: 2015; p. 135 - 162

Biofilms are common in nature and are often associated with undesirable effectssuch as the deterioration of concrete, metal corrosion, fouling of oil and gas pipelinesand ships hulls, dental plaques causing tooth decay, and microbial colonizationof indwelling or percutaneous medical devices, such as catheters, artificialvalves, joints, and stents. Nanomaterials with distinctive physicochemical propertiesand high surface areas are offering new alternatives for the development ofantibiofilm and bactericidal surfaces.In order to obtain antimicrobial coatings several approaches will be described.One approach consists of using a controlled-release nanostructured coating, inwhich the antibiotic is released from the biomedical device and intercepts bacteriain the vicinity. The disadvantage of the release approach is that the duration andeffectiveness of antibacterial action are limited by loading and release kinetics.The second approach consists on the application of a molecular surface layerof covalently immobilized (?grafted?) molecules or on the modification of surfacenanotopography, which can prevent bacterial attachment to material surfaces byeither killing bacteria or changing physicochemical characteristics of the surfaces(hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity, charge, surface free energy, nanoroughness). Inaddition, much longer, perhaps indefinite, effectiveness can be ascertained byusing this approach.