Hayles Andrew, Nguyen Huu Ngoc, Alemie Markos, Vongsvivut Jitraporn, Ninan Neethu, Bright Richard, Dabare Panthihage Ruvini, Gibson Christopher, Truong Vi Khanh, Vasilev Krasimir
Biomedical Nanoengineering Laboratory, Flinders University, Bedford Park, SA, 5042, Australia.
School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2050, Australia.
Adv Biotechnol (Singap). 2025 Apr 3;3(2):10. doi: 10.1007/s44307-025-00061-z.
Implant-associated infections (IAI) are a considerable burden for healthcare systems globally. While novel anti-infective biomaterials are being pursued, prophylactic antibiotic treatment remains the most important intervention for mitigating IAI. The antibiotic tolerance of bacteria has been widely studied, but until recently, the contributions of biomaterial-pathogen interactions have been overlooked. In the present study, we investigate how material electrostatic charge influences the physiological state of the most clinically challenging pathogen-Staphylococcus aureus, and the implications on its antibiotic tolerance. We utilized a combination of techniques, including quantitative gene expression and synchrotron-sourced attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform microspectroscopy, to characterize this phenomenon - elucidating how surface attachment to differently charged substrates drives the pathogen to modify its phenotype. Subsequently, we found a direct relationship between the activity of oppositely charged antibiotics (vancomycin and cefazolin) and the biomaterial-pathogen interface, which we determined to be governed by material electrostatic properties. The findings of the present study have the potential to inform the development of enhanced procedures of antibiotic prophylaxis by instructing personalized biomaterial-antibiotic pairing strategies. These new insights hold promise to contribute to reducing the rate of IAI by enabling clinicians and surgeons to maximize the efficacy of prophylactic antibiotic treatments during implant placement procedures.
植入物相关感染（IAI）是全球医疗系统的一个相当大的负担。虽然人们正在研发新型抗感染生物材料，但预防性抗生素治疗仍然是减轻IAI最重要的干预措施。细菌的抗生素耐受性已得到广泛研究，但直到最近，生物材料与病原体相互作用的影响一直被忽视。在本研究中，我们研究了材料静电荷如何影响临床上最具挑战性的病原体——金黄色葡萄球菌的生理状态，以及对其抗生素耐受性的影响。我们采用了多种技术，包括定量基因表达和同步辐射源衰减全反射傅里叶变换显微光谱法，来表征这一现象——阐明病原体在不同电荷底物上的表面附着如何驱动其改变表型。随后，我们发现带相反电荷的抗生素（万古霉素和头孢唑林）的活性与生物材料-病原体界面之间存在直接关系，我们确定这一关系受材料静电特性的支配。本研究的结果有可能通过指导个性化的生物材料-抗生素配对策略，为改进抗生素预防程序的开发提供信息。这些新见解有望通过使临床医生和外科医生在植入手术过程中最大限度地提高预防性抗生素治疗的疗效，为降低IAI发生率做出贡献。
