Issue 24, 2022

Gram-selective antibacterial activity of mixed-charge 2D-MoS2

Abstract

The development of nanomaterial-based antibiotics can be the most potent alternative due to the increasing resistance against conventional antibiotics. However, one of the important parameters in the development of antibacterial agents is their Gram selectivity, which has been seldomly explored in the case of nano-antibiotics. The multimodal action of surface-functionalized nanomaterials can exhibit strain selectivity and enhanced antibacterial activity. Herein, we designed a Gram-selective antibacterial system based on two-dimensional molybdenum disulphide (2D-MoS2) functionalized with different proportions of positively and negatively charged ligands. Two representative ESKAPE pathogenic strains, i.e., Gram-positive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) were considered to evaluate the selective antibacterial activity. The mechanistic insight behind selectivity was established by evaluating the degree of membrane depolarization together with oxidative stress. The selective generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) together with membrane depolarization contributed to the selective killing of the pathogenic bacteria. Gram selectivity was achieved by simply controlling the surface functionality based on the different cell wall compositions and structures of bacterial strains. The interplay between polyvalent electrostatic and non-covalent interactions was mainly responsible for damaging the cell membrane. Furthermore, to establish the antibacterial mechanism, we performed extracellular and intracellular reactive oxidative stress, membrane depolarization and permeabilization assays. In summary, we prepared simple and efficient Gram-selective 2D-MoS2-based antibacterial agents, which can be extended to other nano-antibiotic systems.

Graphical abstract: Gram-selective antibacterial activity of mixed-charge 2D-MoS2

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 Ақп. 2022
Accepted
09 Мам. 2022
First published
10 Мам. 2022

J. Mater. Chem. B, 2022,10, 4588-4594

Gram-selective antibacterial activity of mixed-charge 2D-MoS2

J. Sahoo and M. De, J. Mater. Chem. B, 2022, 10, 4588 DOI: 10.1039/D2TB00361A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements