Throughout the past decades hospitals have been facing a majorchallenge concerning the growing multi-drug microbial resistance,especially in immunodepressed patients. The developmentof antimicrobial textiles offers a promising solution in the preventionof infections in clinical settings since microbial shedding fromour body contributes to microorganism spreading into a textilematerial, either directly in clothes or on surrounding textiles.The use of some chemical antimicrobial agents in textileshas already been tested, as for example quaternaryammonium-compounds (QACs), biguanidines, silver, triclosan, andN-halamines. However, these have proved to be of limited clinicalapplicability. They exhibit some cytotoxicity causing someirritation of the skin, toxicity to the environment and, except forsilver and N-halamines, exhibit a reduced spectrum of microbialinhibition thus bringing about microbial resistance. Besides, withthe exception of QACs, which establish durable bonds with textiles,they gradually lose their bioactivity with use and laundering.Therefore a new strategy to develop non-toxic antimicrobialtextiles without microbial resistance side-effects are herebydescribed. Our results demonstrate the potential of the cotton andsilk covalent and non-covalent modification with aminoacids andantimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and openingnewavenues to a worldof applications in the area of increased risk microbial infections.
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