Confocal and synergistic test of antimicrobial polymers

• Main Author: Ruan, Lin
• Other Authors: Chan Bee Eng, Mary
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Bioengineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/72366
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Bacterial infections was a serious problems before the penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. It is not suspected that antibiotics have saved thousands of lives, especially in WarⅡ. Kinds of bacteria has multi-drug resistant which loss of active antibiotics would drag the world into Dark Age of medicine. Although some antimicrobial peptides and their mimics have shown good activity, they are commonly sensitive to physiological environment, which limited their real world application. So new antimicrobial peptide significant was required. A new antimicrobial peptide: β-peptides which a PhD designed and synthesized need to be tested. The antimicrobial peptide activity can be carried out by MIC. It is found that 130-1 has a good antibacterial effect compared with 130-2 and 140-1. Super resolution microscopy investigation showed that our copolymer 83-4 act as a cell penetrating peptides (CPP) against P. aeruginosa. However, not all the cells were penetrated. Whereas for other bacteria, our copolymer carpet the membrane against E.coli K12, but some cells still were penetrated. Synergistic study with two antibiotics Rifampincin and Chloramphenicol showed that our copolymers synergy with a panel of gram-negative bacteria, including PA01, E.coli EC958, K. pneumonia-1 the MIC of antibiotics lowed up to hundreds of times. And the second Synergistic study was tested with other antibiotics ( Carbenicillin, Ceftazidime, Piperacillin, Polymyxin B, Sulfamethoxazole, Trimethoprim)and only PA01. In the future work, the anti-bacterial mechanism of antimicrobial peptide need to be studied and the negative effects of synergistic assay should be researched.