NANOTECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION FOR IMPROVING THE ANTIBIOTIC EFFICIENCY AGAINST BIOFILMS DEVELOPED BY GRAM-NEGATIVE BACTERIAL STRAINS

At present bacteria involved in biofilm associated infections display the highest rates of antibiotic resistance among pathogenic bacteria, which made that treatment options to be limited, and determined the researchers to find out alternative treatments to antibiotics. In the recent years nanomaterials gained much attention in medicine, particularly in the fight to bacteria resistant to antibiotics by acting as drug delivery devices. Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MNPs) have raised much interest during the recent years due to their potential applications in medicine. In the present study we synthesized MNPd functionalized with antibiotics for the study of their antimicrobial and anti-biofilm properties against Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, two Gram-negative bacteria, frequently resistant to antibiotics, involved in biofilm infections in order to investigate their capacity to serve as potential drug delivery systems in the fight to these important opportunist pathogens.