pH Shock-promoted lysozyme corona for efficient pathogenic infections treatment: Effects of surface chemistry of mesoporous silica nanoparticles and loading method.

The emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria because of the antibiotics abusement was the motivation to develop the effective alternatives to traditional antibiotics. Hence, various lysozyme corona were prepared through the physical and covalent attachment of lysozyme molecules onto either the bare or carboxyl-functionalized mesoporous silica particles. The prepared samples were characterized by STEM, TGA/DTA, zeta potential, FTIR, UV-vis and CD spectroscopic methods. All the prepared lysozyme-coated particles exhibited an efficient antibacterial activity against Listeria monocytogenes, as a case study, in vitro with no cytotoxicity. The minimal inhibition concentration (MIC) of the lysozyme-physically adsorbed bare and carboxyl-functionalized mesoporous silica nanoparticles (L-MS and L-ads-CMS, respectively) and the lysozyme-covalently attached carboxyl-functionalized MS particles (L-cov-CMS) was 2, 5.3 and 1.7 folds lower than that of the free lysozyme, respectively. Additionally, for the first time, it was reported that the pretreatment of lysozyme corona of L-ads-CMS through inducing a pH-shock can lead to the enhancement of antibacterial properties thereof. This behavior was associated to the controlled release of the immobilized lysozyme molecules and their conformational stability. These natural antibacterial lysozyme-coated silica nanoparticles showing the "pH-shock enhanced activity" could be of utmost interest for design of the highly active enzyme-modified nanoparticles.