A strategy to overcome multispecies vascular catheter-related infections

Funding Information: The authors thank Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) Portugal, for the financial support under the Project PTDC/BTM-SAL/29335/2017 . Portugal 2020 for the Portuguese Mass Spectrometry Network (Rede Nacional de Espectrometria de Massa RNEM ) is also acknowledged. The authors also acknowledge the Designer Nuno Monge for the artwork, Isabel Dias Nogueira (Microlab, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon University) for the technical assistance with the SEM analysis, Andreia Bento for the assistance with the UHPLC-MS equipment (iMed.Ulisboa) and Professor Maria José Ferreira (FFULisboa) for allowing the use of the automatic flash chromatography equipment. Funding Information: The authors thank Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) Portugal, for the financial support under the Project PTDC/BTM-SAL/29335/2017. Portugal 2020 for the Portuguese Mass Spectrometry Network (Rede Nacional de Espectrometria de Massa RNEM) is also acknowledged. The authors also acknowledge the Designer Nuno Monge for the artwork, Isabel Dias Nogueira (Microlab, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon University) for the technical assistance with the SEM analysis, Andreia Bento for the assistance with the UHPLC-MS equipment (iMed.Ulisboa) and Professor Maria José Ferreira (FFULisboa) for allowing the use of the automatic flash chromatography equipment. Publisher Copyright: © 2022In clinic there is a demand to solve the drawback of medical devices multispecies related infections. Consequently, different biomaterial surfaces, such as vascular catheters, urgently need improvement regarding their antifouling/antimicrobial properties. In this work, we covalently functionalized medical grade polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with antimicrobial rhamnolipids to investigate the biomaterial surface activity towards mono and dual species biofilms. Preparation of surfaces with “piranha” oxidation, followed by APTES bonding and carbodiimide reaction with rhamnolipids effectively bonded these compounds to PDMS surface as confirmed by FTIR-ATR and XPS analysis. Generated surfaces were active towards S. aureus biofilm formation showing a 4.2 log reduction while with S. epidermidis and C. albicans biofilms a reduction of 1.2 and 1.0 log reduction, respectively, was observed. Regarding dual-species testing the higher biofilm log reduction observed was 1.9. Additionally, biocompatibility was assessed by cytocompatibility towards human fibroblastic cells, low platelet activation and absence of vascular irritation. Our work not only sheds light on using covalently bonded rhamnolipids towards dual species biofilms but also highlights the biocompatibility of the obtained PDMS surfaces.publishersversionpublishe