Antimicrobial Properties of the Polyaniline Composites against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae

Moorthy Maruthapandi; Arumugam Saravanan; John H T Luong; Aharon Gedanken

doi:10.3390/jfb11030059

Antimicrobial Properties of the Polyaniline Composites against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae

J Funct Biomater. 2020 Aug 19;11(3):59. doi: 10.3390/jfb11030059.

Authors

Moorthy Maruthapandi¹, Arumugam Saravanan¹, John H T Luong², Aharon Gedanken¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
² School of Chemistry, University College Cork, Cork T12 YN60, Ireland.

Abstract

CuO, TiO_2, or SiO₂ was decorated on polyaniline (PANI) by a sonochemical method, and their antimicrobial properties were investigated for two common Gram-negative pathogens: Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (KP). Without PANI, CuO, TiO₂, or SiO₂ with a concentration of 220 µg/mL exhibited no antimicrobial activities. In contrast, PANI-CuO and PANI-TiO₂ (1 mg/mL, each) completely suppressed the PA growth after 6 h of exposure, compared to 12 h for the PANI-SiO₂ at the same concentration. The damage caused by PANI-SiO₂ to KP was less effective, compared to that of PANI-TiO₂ with the eradication time of 12 h versus 6 h, respectively. This bacterium was not affected by PANI-CuO. All the composites bind tightly to the negative groups of bacteria cell walls to compromise their regular activities, leading to the damage of the cell wall envelope and eventual cell lysis.

Keywords: CuO; Klebsiella pneumoniae; PANI-composites; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; SiO2; TiO2; antimicrobials; carbon dots; polyaniline (PANI); ultrasonication.