Tracking bacteria clearance using gold nanoparticles for wound therapy applications

摘要

Bacterial infection and biofilm buildup is a major challenge for wound healing. In the present work we developed amethod to track bacteria in vivo in order to analyze the progress of the healing. Regulated irrigation combined withnegative pressure (RI-NPT) is a nonpharmaceutical therapeutic strategy for reducing bacterial load in acute andchronically infected wounds. Here, we analyzed RI-NPT hydrokinetics and efficacy of bacterial load reduction inwounds. Escherichia coli were loaded with gold nanoparticles, in order to make them "visible" and trackable usingcomputed tomography (CT). Bacteria were tracked using CT in a low-flow rat wound model over time. CT trackingrevealed that while regulated negative pressure-assisted wound therapy reduced bacterial load to a limited extent (5%),RI-NPT significantly increased bacterial outflow and clearance (by 45%). This nanotechnology-based approachdemonstrates the ability to track bacteria in vivo at real time and also the ability of the RI-NPT technology to effectivelyreduce bacterial load.