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Chitosan, the product of chitin deacetylation, is an excellent candidate for enzyme immobilization purposes. Here we demonstrate that papain, an endolytic cysteine protease (EC: 3.4.22.2) from Carica papaya latex immobilized on the matrixes of medium molecular (200 kDa) and high molecular (350 kDa) weight chitosans exhibits anti-biofilm activity and increases the antimicrobials efficiency against biofilm-embedded bacteria. Immobilization in glycine buffer (pH 9.0) allowed adsorption up to 30% of the total protein (mg g chitosan -1 ) and specific activity (U mg protein -1 ), leading to the preservation of more than 90% of the initial total activity (U mL -1 ). While optimal pH and temperature of the immobilized papain did not change, the immobilized enzyme exhibited elevated thermal stability and 6-7-fold longer half-life time in comparison with the soluble papain. While one-half of the total enzyme dissociates from both carriers in 24 h, this property could be used for wound-dressing materials design with dosed release of the enzyme to overcome the relatively high cytotoxicity of soluble papain. Our results indicate that both soluble and immobilized papain efficiently destroy biofilms formed by Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis . As a consequence, papain, both soluble and immobilized on medium molecular weight chitosan, is capable of potentiating the efficacy of antimicrobials against biofilm-embedded Staphylococci . Thus, papain immobilized on medium molecular weight chitosan appears a presumably beneficial agent for outer wound treatment for biofilms destruction, increasing antimicrobial treatment effectiveness.

Many pathogenic bacteria and microscopic fungi form rigid polymicrobial biofilms this way enhancing their resistant to treatment. A series of novel pyridoxine-based quaternary ammonium derivatives of terbinafine characterized by both antifungal and antibacterial activities was designed. The leading compound named KFU-127 exhibits promising antifungal and antibacterial activities against various bacteria and micromycetes in both planktonic and biofilm-embedded forms demonstrating MIC values comparable with those of conventional antifungals and antimicrobials. Similar to other antiseptics like benzalkonium chloride and miramistin, KFU-127 is considerably toxic for eukaryotic cells that limits is application to topical treatment options. On the other hand, KFU-127 reduces the number of viable biofilm-embedded bacteria and C. albicans by 3 orders of magnitude at concentrations 2-4 times lower than those of reference drugs and successfully eradicates S. aureus-C. albicans mixed biofilms. The mechanism of antimicrobial action of KFU-127 is bimodal including both membrane integrity damage and pyridoxal-dependent enzymes targeting. We expect that this bilateral mechanism would result in lower rates of resistance development in both fungal and bacterial pathogens. Taken together, our data suggest KFU-127 as a new promising broad spectrum topical antimicrobial capable of one-shot targeting of bacterial and fungal-bacterial biofilms., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In mixed infections, the bacterial susceptibility differs significantly compared to monocultures of bacteria, and generally the concentrations of antibiotics required for the treatment increases drastically. For S. aureus and P. aeruginosa dual species biofilms, it has been numerously reported that P. aeruginosa decreases S. aureus susceptibility to a broad range of antibiotics, including beta-lactams, glycopeptides, aminoglycosides, macrolides, while sensitizes to quinolones via secretion of various metabolites. Here we show that S. aureus also modulates the susceptibility of P. aeruginosa to antibiotics in mixed cultures. Thus, S. aureus-P. aeruginosa consortium was characterized by tenfold increase in susceptibility to ciprofloxacin and aminoglycosides compared to monocultures. The same effect could be also achieved by the addition of cell-free culture of S. aureus to P. aeruginosa biofilm. Moreover, similar increase in antibiotics efficacy could be observed following addition of S. aureus suspension to the P. aeruginosa mature biofilm, compared to P. aeruginosa monoculture, and vice versa. These findings open promising perspectives to increase the antimicrobial treatment efficacy of the wounds infected with nosocomial pathogens by the transplantation of the skin residential microflora.

Staphylococcus aureus causes various infectious diseases, from skin impetigo to life-threatening bacteremia and sepsis, thus appearing an important target for antimicrobial therapeutics. In turn, the rapid development of antibiotic resistance and biofilm formation makes it extremely robust against treatment. Here, we unravel the molecular mechanism of the antimicrobial activity of the recently unveiled F105 consisting of three pharmacophores: chlorinated 2(5 H )-furanone, sulfone, and l -menthol moieties. F105 demonstrates highly selective activity against Gram-positive bacteria and biofilm-embedded S. aureus and exhibits low risk of resistance development. We show explicitly that the fluorescent analogue of F105 rapidly penetrates into Gram-positive bacteria independently of their cell integrity and viability and accumulates there. By contrast, Gram-negative bacteria remain impermeable and, therefore, insusceptible to F105 . Apparently, in bacterial cells, F105 induces reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and nonspecifically interacts with a number of proteins, including ROS-utilizing ones. Using native and 2D PAGE, we confirm that F105 changes the charge of some proteins by either oxidation or direct interaction with them. Therefore, it seems justified to conclude that being simultaneously a ROS inducer and damaging proteins responsible for ROS utilization, F105 impairs the cellular anti-ROS defense representing a prospective ROS-inducing antibacterial agent.

Among a variety of antimicrobial compounds, the derivatives of 2(5H)-furanone exhibit different effects on Firmicutes and Proteobacteria. While inhibiting quorum-dependent biofilm formation and virulence factor expression by Gram-negative bacteria through specific interference with the AI-2 signaling pathways, these compounds demonstrate bactericidal effects against Gram-positive bacteria. Here we report that 3,4-dichloro-5(S)-[(1S,2R,4S)-1,7,7-trimethylbicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-2-yloxy]-2(5H)-furanone designed as F123 inhibits growth and biofilm formation by the food-poisoning bacterium Bacillus cereus at 8 μg/ ml and kills bacteria at 16 μg/ml. While the growth of Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Micrococcus luteus, Bacillus subtilis were also inhibited at 8-16 μg/ml of F123, no bactericidal effect on these strains was observed at concentrations up to 128 μg/ml, suggesting pronounced specificity of F123 for B. cereus. In a checker-board assay F123 increased the efficacy of amikacin, gentamicin and benzalkonium chloride against B. cereus with medians of fractional inhibitory concentration index of 0.38, 0.56 and 0.56, respectively. Moreover, the number of viable B. cereus cells in biofilm was reduced by more than 3 orders of magnitude at 64 μg/ml of F123, suggesting its chemotype as a promising enhancer for specific treatment of B. cereus-associated topical infections, including biofilm-embedded bacteria.

We studied the effects of quaternary bis-phosphonium and bis-ammonium salts of pyridoxine with lipophilic substituents on the survival and morphology of Staphylococcus aureus cells. We found that, while originating from the same base, they exhibit considerably different antimicrobial mechanisms. In the presence of Ca(2+) ions the MIC and MBC values of ammonium salt increased 100-fold, suggesting that Ca(2+) ions can successfully impede the membrane Ca(2+) ions exchange required for ammonium salt incorporation. In contrast, in the presence of quaternary phosphonium salt, the artificial capsular-like material was formed around the cells and the filamentous and chain-like growth of the cells was observed suggesting the disruption of the cell division mechanisms. Altogether, both pyridoxine derivatives successfully inhibited the growth of gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Bacillus subtilis) and Escherichia coli considerably, while demonstrated nearly no effect against Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We suggest that due to their effects on distinct and likely complementary targets the derivatives of pyridoxine represent potentially perspective antibacterials with complicated adaptation and thus with lower risk of drug resistance development.

Gram-positive bacteria can cause various infections including hospital-acquired infections. While in the biofilm, the resistance of bacteria to both antibiotics and the human immune system is increased causing difficulties in the treatment. Bacillus subtilis, a non-pathogenic Gram-positive bacterium, is widely used as a model organism for studying biofilm formation. Here we investigated the effect of novel synthesized chloro- and bromo-containing 2(5H)-furanones on biofilm formation by B. subtilis. Mucobromic acid (3,4-dibromo-5-hydroxy-2(5H)-furanone) and the two derivatives of mucochloric acid (3,4-dichloro-5-hydroxy-2(5H)-furanone)-F8 and F12-were found to inhibit the growth and to efficiently prevent biofilm formation by B. subtilis. Along with the low production of polysaccharide matrix and repression of the eps operon, strong repression of biofilm-related yqxM also occurred in the presence of furanones. Therefore, our data confirm that furanones affect significantly the regulatory pathway(s) leading to biofilm formation. We propose that the global regulator, Spo0A, is one of the potential putative cellular targets for these compounds.

Opportunistic bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis often form rigid biofilms on tissues and inorganic surfaces. In the biofilm bacterial cells are embedded in a self-produced polysaccharide matrix and thereby are inaccessible to biocides, antibiotics, or host immune system. Here we show the antibacterial activity of newly synthesized cationic biocides, the quaternary ammonium, and bisphosphonium salts of pyridoxine (vitamin B6) against biofilm-embedded Staphylococci. The derivatives of 6-hydroxymethylpyridoxine were ineffective against biofilm-embedded S. aureus and S. epidermidis at concentrations up to 64 μg/mL, although all compounds tested exhibited low MICs (2 μg/mL) against planktonic cells. In contrast, the quaternary ammonium salt of pyridoxine (N,N-dimethyl-N-((2,2,8-trimethyl-4H-[1,3]dioxino[4,5-c]pyridin-5-yl)methyl)octadecan-1-aminium chloride (3)) demonstrated high biocidal activity against both planktonic and biofilm-embedded bacteria. Thus, the complete death of biofilm-embedded S. aureus and S. epidermidis cells was obtained at concentrations of 64 and 16 μg/mL, respectively. We suggest that the quaternary ammonium salts of pyridoxine are perspective to design new synthetic antibiotics and disinfectants for external application against biofilm-embedded cells.