Study of synergetic effect between BODIPY and ZnO on visible light-enhanced antibacterial activity

Abstract

High incidence of bacterial infections and the growing of drug-resistant bacteria to conventional antibiotics have become great concerns. Developing new antibacterial agents and methods to inhibit bacterial-resistance have attracted great research interest. Due to their multiple antibacterial mechanisms, light-induced antibacterial materials are promising to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In the present work, visible light response ZnO-based nanocomposite (BIN-ZnO) was prepared by nano-ZnO modified with a novel boron dipyrromethene photosensitizer (BIN) via simple coordination-driven self-assembly reaction. Compared with the individual BIN and ZnO, BIN-ZnO shows higher visible light-enhanced antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus. This is attributed to the synergism between BIN and ZnO, which overcome high aggregation of BIN and insensitivity to visible light of ZnO. And The antibacterial mechanism study indicates that synergism between BIN and ZnO increases ROS yields and accelerates release of Zn ions, which is beneficial for higher antibacterial activity.