Ionic Interaction-Driven Switchable Bactericidal Surfaces

Abstract

The external bacteria will inevitably invade the wound, attach, and subsequently colonize on the wound surface during surgery and biomedical operations, which slows down the process of wound healing and tissue repair, remaining a significant threat to human health. Therefore, developing a smart antibacterial surface has become the focus of antimicrobial research field, which has important social and economic significance. Herein, we present a simple route towards producing ionic interaction-driven switchable multifunctional antibacterial surfaces that decrease bacteria attachment and inactivate attached microorganisms. Briefly, the graded surface was constructed by surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization on silicon substrate consisting of antifouling component poly (3-sulfopropyl methacrylate potassium salt) (PSPMA) brushes, an antibacterial positive-charged components lysozyme (LYZ) and hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) were loaded on negative-charged sulfonate groups via electrostatic interaction. The resultant brushes grafted surfaces exhibited more than ~95.5% bactericidal efficacy, and ~92.8% releasing rate after introducing contra-ions (Na+ & Cl-) against both Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus. More importantly, the ionic interaction-driven method used in this work is straightforward to produce renewable antibacterial surfaces. To further extend the applications, we construct smart cotton fabric to develop Fabric-PSPMA/LYZ and Fabric-PSPMA/Chitosan brushes which can promote wound healing and tissue repair. This work will assist in the wider utilization of the switchable antibacterial functionalization of biomedical materials.