Electrostatic charge at the biomaterial-pathogen interface influences antibiotic efficacy
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Date
2025
Authors
Hayles, A.
Nguyen, H.N.
Alemie, M.
Vongsvivut, J.
Ninan, N.
Bright, R.
Dabare, P.R.
Gibson, C.
Truong, V.K.
Vasilev, K.
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Advanced Biotechnology, 2025; 3(2):10-1-10-19
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Andrew Hayles, Huu Ngoc Nguyen, Markos Alemie, Jitraporn Vongsvivut, Neethu Ninan, Richard Bright, Panthihage Ruvini Dabare, Christopher Gibson, Vi Khanh Truong, and Krasimir Vasilev
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Abstract
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.
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© The Author(s) 2025, corrected publication 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.