Nanostructures for Antimicrobial Therapy

M. B. SPESIA; M. E. MILANESIO; E. N. DURANTINI

Set Nanostructures in Therapeutic Medicine

ELsevier

Año: 2016;

Fullerene derivativesare accepted as nanoparticles with several potential biomedical applications. The combination of visible light absorption and a longlifetime of triplet excited state allow fullerenes to act as efficient photosensitizers.Interesting results have been found using amphiphilic cationic fullerenes asphotosensitizers to photoinactivate microorganisms. The triplet excitedstate of these compounds may interact with ground state molecular oxygen toproduce ROS. This process can occur by energy transfer to produce singletmolecular oxygen, O2(1Dg) or by electron transfer to formsuperoxide anion radical (O2.-). Incontrast to O2(1Dg) generation, the electron transfer type of reaction is favored inpolar solvents, particularly in the presence of reducing agents. Moreover, fullerenes can be attached to light-harvestingantenna structures. Thus, cationic fullerenes can selectivelybind to microbial cells, inducing an efficient photoinactivation of pathogenicmicroorganisms. Therefore, functionalized fullerenes are interestingnanostructures with applications as antimicrobial photosensitizing agents.