Polyphosphazenes enable durable, hemocompatible, highly efficient antibacterial coatings

Victoria Albright, Daniel Penarete-Acosta, Mary Stack, Jeremy Zheng, Alexander Marin, Hanna Hlushko, Hongjun Wang, Arul Jayaraman, Alexander K. Andrianov, Svetlana A. Sukhishvili

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

Biocompatible antibacterial coatings are highly desirable to prevent bacterial colonization on a wide range of medical devices from hip implants to skin grafts. Traditional polyelectrolytes are unable to directly form coatings with cationic antibiotics at neutral pH and suffer from high degrees of antibiotic release upon exposure to physiological concentrations of salt. Here, novel inorganic-organic hybrid polymer coatings based on direct layer-by-layer assembly of anionic polyphosphazenes (PPzs) of various degrees of fluorination with cationic antibiotics (polymyxin B, colistin, gentamicin, and neomycin) are reported. The coatings displayed low levels of antibiotic release upon exposure to salt and pH-triggered response of controlled doses of antibiotics. Importantly, coatings remained highly surface active against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, even after 30 days of pre-exposure to physiological conditions (bacteria-free) or after repeated bacterial challenge. Moreover, coatings displayed low (<1%) hemolytic activity for both rabbit and porcine blood. Coatings deposited on either hard (Si wafers) or soft (electrospun fiber matrices) materials were non-toxic towards fibroblasts (NIH/3T3) and displayed controllable fibroblast adhesion via PPz fluorination degree. Finally, coatings showed excellent antibacterial activity in ex vivo pig skin studies. Taken together, these results suggest a new avenue to form highly tunable, biocompatible polymer coatings for medical device surfaces.

Original languageEnglish
Article number120586
JournalBiomaterials
Volume268
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2021

Keywords

  • Antibacterial
  • Fluoropolymers
  • Hemocompatible
  • Layer-by-layer
  • Polyphosphazenes
  • Self-defensive

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