2. Academic Validation
  3. Catechol cross-linked antimicrobial peptide hydrogels prevent multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infection in burn wounds

Catechol cross-linked antimicrobial peptide hydrogels prevent multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infection in burn wounds

  • Biosci Rep. 2019 Jun 18;39(6):BSR20190504. doi: 10.1042/BSR20190504.
Abidullah Khan 1,  Miao Xu 2,  Tengjiao Wang 3,  Chuangang You 1,  Xingang Wang 1,  Haitao Ren 1,  Hongwei Zhou 4,  Amin Khan 5,  Chunmao Han 6,  Peng Li 7 3
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Burns, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Jiefang Road 88, Hangzhou 310009, China.
  • 2 Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLOFE) and Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Tech University (NanjingTech), Nanjing 211816, China.
  • 3 Shaanxi Institute of Flexible Electronics (SIFE) and Institute of Biomedical Materials and Engineering (IBME), Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), 127 West Youyi Road, Xi'an 710072, China.
  • 4 Department of Clinical Microbiology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Jiefang Road 88, Hangzhou 310009, China.
  • 5 Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology, Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) 28100, Pakistan.
  • 6 Department of Burns, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Jiefang Road 88, Hangzhou 310009, China zrssk@zju.edu.cn iampli@nwpu.edu.cn.
  • 7 Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLOFE) and Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Tech University (NanjingTech), Nanjing 211816, China zrssk@zju.edu.cn iampli@nwpu.edu.cn.
PMID: 31138760 DOI: 10.1042/BSR20190504
Abstract

Hospital-acquired infections are common in burn patients and are the major contributors of morbidity and mortality. Bacterial infections such as Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) are difficult to treat due to their biofilm formation and rapidly acquiring resistance to Antibiotics. This work presents a newly developed hydrogel that has the potential for treating Bacterial wound infections. The hydrogel formulation is based on an antimicrobial peptide (AMP), epsilon-poly-l-lysine (EPL) and catechol, which was cross-linked via mussel-inspired chemistry between the amine and phenol groups. In vitro studies showed that EPL-catechol hydrogels possess impressive antimicrobial and antibiofilm properties toward multidrug-resistant A. baumannii (MRAB). In addition, cytotoxicity study with the clonal mouse myoblast cell line (C2C12) revealed the good biocompatibility of this hydrogel. Furthermore, we created a second-degree burn wound on the mice dorsal skin surface followed by contamination with MRAB. Our results showed that the hydrogel significantly reduced the Bacterial burden by more than four orders of magnitude in infected burn wounds. Additionally, there was no significant histological alteration with hydrogel application on mice skin. Based on these results, we concluded that EPL-catechol hydrogel is a promising future biomaterial to fight against multidrug-resistant Bacterial infections.

Keywords

Acinetobacter baumannii; Antimicrobial hydrogels; biofilm eradication; burn infection; catechol; epsilon-poly-L-lysine.

Figures
Products