A potential strategy against clinical carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae: antimicrobial activity study of sweetener-decorated gold nanoparticles in vitro and in vivo

作者：Haifeng Liu, Zeyu Huang, Huanchang Chen, Ying Zhang, Pingting Yu, Panjie Hu, Xiaotuan Zhang, Jianming Cao, Tieli Zhou · 发表于：Journal of Nanobiotechnology · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1186/s12951-023-02149-x · 被引用次数：29 · 研究领域：Nanoparticles: synthesis and applications、Antimicrobial agents and applications、Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts

BACKGROUND: Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) present substantial challenges to clinical intervention, necessitating the formulation of novel antimicrobial strategies to counteract them. Nanomaterials offer a distinctive avenue for eradicating bacteria by employing mechanisms divergent from traditional antibiotic resistance pathways and exhibiting reduced susceptibility to drug resistance development. Non-caloric artificial sweeteners, commonly utilized in the food sector, such as saccharin, sucralose, acesulfame, and aspartame, possess structures amenable to nanomaterial formation. In this investigation, we synthesized gold nanoparticles decorated with non-caloric artificial sweeteners and evaluated their antimicrobial efficacy against clinical CRE strains. RESULTS: Among these, gold nanoparticles decorated with aspartame (ASP_Au NPs) exhibited the most potent antimicrobial effect, displaying minimum inhibitory concentrations ranging from 4 to 16 µg/mL. As a result, ASP_Au NPs were chosen for further experimentation. Elucidation of the antimicrobial mechanism unveiled that ASP_Au NPs substantially elevated bacterial reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, which dissipated upon ROS scavenger treatment, indicating ROS accumulation within bacteria as the fundamental antimicrobial modality. Furthermore, findings from membrane permeability assessments suggested that ASP_Au NPs may represent a secondary antimicrobial modality via enhancing inner membrane permeability. In...