Micro organism that multiply on surfaces are a serious headache in well being care once they acquire a foothold on, for instance, implants or in catheters. Researchers at Chalmers College of Expertise in Sweden have discovered a brand new weapon to struggle these hotbeds of bacterial progress—one that doesn’t depend on antibiotics or poisonous metals.
The important thing lies in a very new software of this 12 months’s Nobel Prize-winning materials: metal-organic frameworks. These supplies can bodily impale, puncture and kill micro organism earlier than they’ve time to connect to the floor.
As a result of as soon as micro organism connect to a floor, they begin to multiply whereas encasing themselves in what is named a biofilm—a viscous, slimy coating that protects the micro organism and makes them tough to kill. Biofilms thrive notably nicely in humid environments and might pose severe challenges in well being care.
For instance, micro organism can connect to medical units similar to catheters, hip replacements and dental implants, and result in hospital-acquired infections (HAI), also referred to as nosocomial infections—a widespread downside worldwide that causes nice struggling and excessive well being care prices, and an elevated danger of the event of antibiotic resistance.
Biofilms also can kind on ship hulls, the place they’ll result in troublesome algal biofouling and barnacle progress, slowing down the ship whereas rising its gasoline consumption.
Moreover, antifouling paints containing poisonous biocides are sometimes used on ship hulls to fight this downside, with an related danger of dangerous substances leaching into the marine atmosphere. Biofilms in industrial piping techniques are additionally a widespread downside that may trigger corrosion, clog the techniques, cut back their effectivity, and enhance power consumption, for instance.
New means to make use of metal-organic frameworks
Researchers at Chalmers College of Expertise have now discovered a brand new technique to assault biofilms by coating surfaces with nanostructures—metal-organic frameworks—that kill micro organism mechanically.
The research, printed within the journal Superior Science, was carried out in a collaboration between two groups of researchers on the College: Professor Ivan Mijakovic’s and Professor Lars Öhrström’s.
“Our research reveals that these nanostructures can act like tiny spikes that bodily injure the micro organism, fairly merely puncturing them in order that they die. It’s a very new means of utilizing such metal-organic frameworks,” says the research’s lead writer, Zhejian Cao, Ph.D. in Supplies Engineering and researcher at Chalmers.
The coating is constructed in a means that permits it to be utilized to a wide range of surfaces and built-in into different supplies. A significant benefit of the strategy is that it prevents or reduces biofilm formation with out the necessity to use antibiotics or poisonous metals.
“It fights a serious international downside, because it eliminates the chance that controlling micro organism will result in antibiotic resistance,” says Cao.
Steel-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a new class of supplies with distinctive properties the place steel ions are interlinked into three-dimensional constructions with massive cavities and channels within the materials.
The Chalmers researchers explored a very totally different perform for MOFs of their research.
“There have been earlier makes an attempt to make use of metal-organic frameworks for antibacterial functions, however in these instances the micro organism have been killed by poisonous steel ions or antimicrobial brokers launched by the MOFs. As a substitute, now we have grown one MOF on prime of one other, which leads to the formation of sharp nanotips that may puncture and kill the micro organism once they strategy,” says Cao. The nanotips have been created by controlling the crystalline progress within the materials, and a serious problem was discovering the suitable distance between the nanotips to maximise their impact.
“If the gap between the nanotips is simply too massive, micro organism can slip by means of and fasten to the floor. If the gap is simply too small, nonetheless, the mechanical stress exerted by the nanotips on the bacterial cell capsule could also be lowered in order that the micro organism survive—the identical precept that permits you to lie on a mattress of nails with out getting harm,” says Cao.
Attainable to realize large-scale manufacturing
Lars Öhrström is a co-author of the research and has labored with metal-organic frameworks for 30 years. He emphasizes that there are quite a few sensible benefits to utilizing MOF coatings for controlling micro organism on surfaces in comparison with different options.
“These coatings might be produced at a lot decrease temperatures than, for instance, the graphene arrays beforehand developed at Chalmers. This facilitates large-scale manufacturing and makes it potential to use the coatings to temperature-sensitive supplies such because the plastics utilized in medical implants. As well as, the natural polymers in metal-organic frameworks might be created from recycled plastics, having the potential to contribute to a round financial system,” says Lars Öhrström.
The research was carried out in Professor Lars Öhrström’s analysis group on the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and in Professor Ivan Mijakovic’s group on the Division of Life Sciences.
Extra data: Zhejian Cao et al, Mechano‐Bactericidal Surfaces Achieved by Epitaxial Development of Steel–Natural Frameworks, Superior Science (2025). DOI: 10.1002/advs.202505976
