Quorum sensing inhibiting dihydropyrrol-2-ones embedded polymer/graphene oxide nanocomposite waterborne antimicrobial coatings

Abstract

With increasing antibiotic resistance and hospital acquired microbial infections, there has been a growing interest to explore alternate antimicrobial approaches. This is particularly challenging when aiming to protect surfaces over a large area to avoid contact mediated infection transmission. Quorum sensing (QS) inhibition has emerged as an alternate antimicrobial approach overcoming evolutionary stress driven resistance observed in antibiotic treatment. However, specific surface orientation requirements and limited work on delivery of small molecule QS inhibiting compounds have limited their widespread applicability certainly when it comes to coating large surfaces. Here, we report antimicrobial nanocomposite coatings overcoming the dependence on molecular orientation of QS inhibiting dihydropyrrol-2-ones (DHP) analogues and release small molecule analogues. In a systematic study, we developed poly(styrene-stat-n-butyl acrylate)/graphene oxide (GO)/DHP analogue nanocomposite antimicrobial coatings that can be easily applied to surfaces of any length scale and studied their efficacy against Staphylococcus aureus. The polymer nanocomposite was designed to undergo coating formation at ambient temperature. The antimicrobial coatings exhibited DHP dose dependent antimicrobial response both in the supernatant growth media with a ∼7-log₁₀ reduction in cell growth and virtually a complete inhibition in cell adhesion on the surface in the best coating compared to controls. When compared, DHP-Br coatings outperformed other DHP analogues (–F and –Ph) both in limiting the cell growth in the media and cellular adhesion on the coating surface. This is the first example of nanocomposite coatings comprising QS inhibiting compounds, and their exceptional performance is expected to pave the way for further research in the field.