Antimicrobial blue light: A drug-free approach for inactivating pathogenic microbes

摘要

Due to the growing global threat of antibiotic resistance, there is a critical need for the development of alternative therapeutics for infectious diseases. Antimicrobial blue light (aBL), as an innovative non-antibiotic approach, has attracted increasing attention. This paper discussed the basic concepts of aBL and recent findings in the studies of aBL. It is commonly hypothesized that the antimicrobial property of aBL is attributed to the presence of endogenous photosensitizing chromophores in microbial cells, which produce cytotoxic reactive oxygen species upon light irradiation. A wide range of important microbes are found to be susceptible to aBL inactivation. Studies have also shown there exist therapeutic windows where microbes are selectively inactivated by aBL while host cells are preserved. The combination of aBL with some other agents result in synergistically improved antimicrobial efficacy. Future efforts should be exerted on the standardization of study design for evaluating aBL efficacy, further elucidation of the mechanism of action, optimization of the technical parameters, and translation of this technique to clinic.