Abstract
The ability of Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) to form biofilms, can be considered an important factor that contributes to the prevalence of Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) due to the inaccessibility of the antibiotics into the highly complex structure of the biofilm. Moreover, with the appearance of antibiotic multiresistant UPEC strains, the alternatives of treatment of UTIs are less. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) can be useful in the treatment of the UPEC infections due to its physicochemical properties that confer them antibacterial activity against both planktonic and biofilm structured cells. A diversity of biological methods for synthesis of AgNPs with antimicrobial activity has been widely investigated during the last decades, between these methods; the fungal-biosynthesis of AgNPs highlights as an ecofriendly, scalable and low cost method. In this study, biogenic AgNPs were synthesized with extracellular metabolites secreted by the soil fungal strain Fusarium scirpi (Ag0.5–5) by an ecofriendly, simple and efficient method. The antimicrobial activity of the biosynthesized AgNPs against UPEC was evaluated. The Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of biogenic AgNPs over planktonic UPEC cells was 25 mg/mL, whereas a sub-MIC concentration (7.5 mg/L) was sufficient to inhibit the UPEC-biofilm formation about a 97%, or produce the disruption of an 80% of mature UPEC-biofilms demonstrating the potential of fungal-derived AgNPs to prevent UPEC infections.
Highlights
Uropthogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) is the main pathogen associated with Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) [1], its pathogenicity resides on several virulence factors codified in genomic Pathogenicity Islands (PAI) that includes adhesins, toxins, flagella, surface polysaccharides and iron-acquisition systems [2]
The applicability of AgNPs could be limited by the high cost of pure AgNPs suspensions, biological methods are extensively explored as an ecofriendly alternative for the AgNPs production at lower cost with respect to other methods [20]
Fungal biosynthesis has attracted the attention as a good “green” alternative for metal NPs production, due to the feasibility to use extracellular fungal molecules secreted as intermediaries of metal NPs synthesis [29,39]
Summary
Uropthogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) is the main pathogen associated with Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) [1], its pathogenicity resides on several virulence factors codified in genomic Pathogenicity Islands (PAI) that includes adhesins, toxins, flagella, surface polysaccharides and iron-acquisition systems [2]. The persistence of UPEC within the bladder, regardless of antibiotic treatments, and the increased number of UPEC-resistant isolates to several antibiotics [7]; leads to a reduction of the alternatives for the UTIs treatment. It could represents a public health problem that can be coped with the development of new or more effective antibiotics, or antimicrobial agents such as the antimicrobial peptides, synthetic chemical compounds, or inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) [8]. The antimicrobial effectiveness of AgNPs is influenced by some physicochemical properties such as shape, size, structure and capping, which can vary depending of the method used for their synthesis [11,12,13]. The interest in biosynthesis could be due to the advantage that this kind of synthesis ( called “green synthesis”) represents to the environmental care with respect to the injury caused by reagents used in conventional methods of synthesis, biosynthesis involve high yield and stability; the homogeneity of size and shape is frequently a challenge [16]
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