Photosensitizer Embedded Polyacrylonitrile Nanofibers as Antimicrobial Non Woven Textile
Toward the objective of developing platform technologies for anti infective materials based upon photodynamic inactivation, we employed electrospinning to prepare a non woven textile comprised of polyacrylonitrile nanofibers embedded with a porphyrin based cationic photosensitizer; termed PAN Por( Photosensitizer loading was determined to be 34.8 nmol/mg material; with thermostability to 300 degC. Antibacterial efficacy was evaluated against four bacteria belonging to the ESKAPE family of pathogens (Staphylococcus aureus; vancomycin resistant Enterococcus faecium; Acinetobacter baumannii; and Klebsiella pneumonia) as well as Escherichia coli. Our results demonstrated broad photodynamic inactivation of all bacterial strains studied upon illumination (30 min; 65 5 mW/cm2; 400 700 nm) by a minimum of 99.9996+ (5.8 log units) regardless of taxonomic classification. PAN Por( also inactivated human adenovirus 5 ~99.8% reduction in PFU/mL) and vesicular stomatitis virus >7 log units reduction in PFU/mL) When compared to cellulose based materials employing this same photosensitizer; the higher levels of photodynamic inactivation achieved here with PAN Por( are likely due to the combined effects of higher photosensitizer loading and a greater surface area imparted by the use of nanofibers. These results demonstrate the potential of photosensitizer embedded polyacrylonitrile nanofibers to serve as scalable scaffolds for anti infective or self sterilizing materials against both bacteria and viruses when employing a photodynamic inactivation mode of action.
Nanomaterials