Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube-Assisted Antibiotic Delivery and Imaging in S. epidermidis Strains Addressing Antibiotic Resistance
by
Afeefah Khazi-Syed 1,†
, Md Tanvir Hasan 1, Elizabeth Campbell 1, Roberto Gonzalez-Rodriguez 2 and Anton V. Naumov 1,*
Afeefah Khazi-Syed 1,†, Md Tanvir Hasan 1, Elizabeth Campbell 1, Roberto Gonzalez-Rodriguez 2 and Anton V. Naumov 1,*
1
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas Christian University, TCU Box 298840, Fort Worth, TX 76129, USA
2
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Texas Christian University, TCU Box 298860, Fort Worth, TX 76129, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
Current address: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Nanomaterials 2019, 9(12), 1685; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano9121685
Received: 25 September 2019 / Revised: 11 October 2019 / Accepted: 18 November 2019 / Published: 25 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanopharmaceutics)
Although conventional antibiotics have evolved as a staple of modern medicine, increasing antibiotic resistance and the lack of antibiotic efficacy against new bacterial threats is becoming a major medical threat. In this work, we employ single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) known to deliver and track therapeutics in mammalian cells via intrinsic near-infrared fluorescence as carriers enhancing antibacterial delivery of doxycycline and methicillin. SWCNTs dispersed in water by antibiotics without the use of toxic bile salt surfactants facilitate efficacy enhancement for both antibiotics against Staphylococcus epidermidis strain showing minimal sensitivity to methicillin. Doxycycline to which the strain did not show resistance in complex with SWCNTs provides only minor increase in efficacy, whereas the SWCNTs/methicillin complex yields up to 40-fold efficacy enhancement over antibiotics alone, suggesting that SWCNT-assisted delivery may circumvent antibiotic resistance in that bacterial strain. At the same time SWCNT/antibiotic formulations appear to be less toxic to mammalian cells than antibiotics alone suggesting that nanomaterial platforms may not restrict potential biomedical applications. The improvement in antibacterial performance with SWCNT delivery is tested via 3 independent assays—colony count, MIC (Minimal Inhibitory Concentration) turbidity and disk diffusion, with the statistical significance of the latter verified by ANOVA and Dunnett’s method. The potential mechanism of action is attributed to SWCNT interactions with bacterial cell wall and adherence to the membrane, as substantial association of SWCNT with bacteria is observed—the near-infrared fluorescence microscopy of treated bacteria shows localization of SWCNT fluorescence in bacterial clusters, scanning electron microscopy verifies SWCNT association with bacterial surface, whereas transmission electron microscopy shows individual SWCNT penetration into bacterial cell wall. This work characterizes SWCNTs as novel advantageous antibiotic delivery/imaging agents having the potential to address antibiotic resistance.
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Keywords:
carbon nanotubes; antibiotic; methicillin; doxycycline; antibiotic delivery; fluorescence imaging; antibiotic resistance
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MDPI and ACS Style
Khazi-Syed, A.; Hasan, M.T.; Campbell, E.; Gonzalez-Rodriguez, R.; Naumov, A.V. Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube-Assisted Antibiotic Delivery and Imaging in S. epidermidis Strains Addressing Antibiotic Resistance. Nanomaterials 2019, 9, 1685.
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