Fungal-derived selenium nanoparticles and their potential applications in electroless silver coatings for preventing pin-tract infections.

Pin-tract infections (PTIs) are a common complication of external fixation of fractures and current strategies for preventing PTIs have proven to be ineffective. Recent advances show that the use of anti-infection coatings with local antibacterial activity may solve this problem. Selenium has been considered as a promising anti-infection agent owing to its antibacterial and antibiofilm activities. In this study, selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) were synthesized a cost-effective fungi-mediated biorecovery approach and demonstrated excellent stability and homogeneity. To investigate their anti-infection potential, the SeNPs were doped in silver coatings through an electroless plating process and the silver-selenium (Ag-Se) coatings were tested for antibacterial and antibiofilm properties against F1557 and WT F1693 as well as corrosion resistance in simulated body fluid. It was found that the Ag-Se coating significantly inhibited growth and biofilm formation on the surface, reducing 81.2% and 59.7% of viable bacterial adhesion when compared with Ag and Ag-PTFE-coated surfaces after 3 days. The Ag-Se coating also exhibited improved corrosion resistance compared with the Ag coating, leading to a controlled release of Ag, which in turn reduced the risk of cytotoxicity against hFOBs. These results suggest that the fungal-derived SeNPs may have potential in use as implant coatings to prevent PTIs.