| AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Biomaterial Interfaces Division | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session BI-WeM |
| Session: | Cells at Interfaces |
| Presenter: | Andrew Hook, University of Nottingham, UK |
| Authors: | A.L. Hook, University of Nottingham, UK J. Yang, University of Nottingham, UK C.-Y. Chang, University of Nottingham, UK D.G. Anderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology R. Langer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology S. Atkinson, University of Nottingham, UK P. Williams, University of Nottingham, UK M.C. Davies, University of Nottingham, UK M.R. Alexander, University of Nottingham, UK |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Biofilm formation leads to a 1000 times increase in antibiotic tolerance compared with planktonic bacteria and is associated with 80% of hospital acquired infections, resulting in $3.0 billion in excess health-care costs each year in the U.S alone. Thus, new materials for biomedical devices that prevent biofilm formation would offer enormous benefits to the health industry and improve patient welfare. However, our current understanding of bacteria-material interactions limits scope for rational design of such materials. Polymer microarrays are emerging as a key enabling technology for the discovery of new biomaterials.1 A method for forming polymer microarrays has been developed using contact printing to deposit nanolitre volumes of premixed acrylate monomer and initiator to defined locations on a poly(HEMA) coated glass slide with UV photo-initiation.2 This platform enables a large combinatorial space to be rapidly screened by a biological assay to identify new materials that fulfil a given performance criterion.3 A library of polymer gradients that enables the systematic investigation of biology-material interactions can be created by producing polymers from monomers mixed at hundreds of different concentrations. Utilising a high throughput surface characterisation approach the surface chemical and physical properties of each material can be characterised and related to the biological performance.4 We have developed a high throughput bacterial attachment assay based on three pathogens (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli) expressing green fluorescent protein, which is compatible with the polymer microarray format. This study provides novel insights into the bacteria-material interactions, highlighting chemical moieties that both support and resist bacterial attachment. Specifically, superior efficiacy to prevent bacterial attachment has been demonstrated for hydrophobic moieties on a polyacrylate backbone that contains weakly polar ester groups, which represent an amphiphillic chemical nature.
1 Hook, A. L. et al., High throughput methods applied in biomaterial development and discovery. Biomaterials 31 (2), 187 (2010).
2 Anderson, D. G., Levenberg, S., and Langer, R., Nanoliter-scale synthesis of arrayed biomaterials and application to human embryonic stem cells. Nature Biotechnology 22 (7), 863 (2004).
3 Mei, Y. et al., Combinatorial development of biomaterials for clonal growth of human pluripotent stem cells. Nature Materials 9 (9), 768 (2010).
4 Urquhart, A. J. et al., High throughput surface characterisation of a combinatorial material library. Advanced Materials 19 (18), 2486 (2007).