Abstract
Titanium-based implants are ubiquitous in the healthcare industries and often suffer from bacterial attachment which results in infections. An innovative method of reducing bacterial growth is to employ nanostructures on implant materials that cause contact-dependent cell death by mechanical rupture of bacterial cell membranes. To achieve this, we synthesized nanostructures with different architectures on titanium surfaces using hydrothermal treatment processes and then examined the growth of Staphylococcus epidermidis on these surfaces. The structure obtained after a two-hour hydrothermal treatment (referred to as spear-type) showed the least bacterial attachment at short times but over a period of 6 days tended to support the formation of thick biofilms. By contrast, the structure obtained after a three-hour hydrothermal treatment (referred to as pocket-type) was found to delay biofilm formation up to 6 days and killed 47% of the initially attached bacteria by penetrating or compressing the bacteria in between the network of intertwined nano-spears. The results point to the efficacy of pocket-type nanostructure in increasing the killing rate of individual bacteria and potentially delaying longer-term biofilm formation.
Highlights
Titanium (Ti) and its alloys have been widely used for biomedical devices and surgical implants, due to their excellent mechanical properties, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility[1,2,3]
The results indicated that the pocket-type nanostructure can delay biofilm formation up to at least 6 days by causing mechanical rupture or severe deformation of bacterial cell membranes
The cone-shaped cap of the nano-spear was a result of crystal growth during hydrothermal treatment, and similar observations have been reported in the previous investigations[36,37]
Summary
Titanium (Ti) and its alloys have been widely used for biomedical devices and surgical implants, due to their excellent mechanical properties, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility[1,2,3]. Bhadra et al.[34] showed that dragonfly-inspired TiO2 nanowires aided in bactericidal activity against Gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus cells[34] This surface promoted the attachment of primary human fibroblasts. The results indicated that the pocket-type nanostructure can delay biofilm formation up to at least 6 days by causing mechanical rupture or severe deformation of bacterial cell membranes. We anticipate that these insights will facilitate the development of novel bactericidal nanostructured implant surfaces that reduce biofilm growth thereby reducing the frequency of infections
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