AUTHOR=Novickij Vitalij , Stanevičienė Ramunė , Vepštaitė-Monstavičė Iglė , Gruškienė Rūta , Krivorotova Tatjana , Sereikaitė Jolanta , Novickij Jurij , Servienė Elena 

TITLE=Overcoming Antimicrobial Resistance in Bacteria Using Bioactive Magnetic Nanoparticles and Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2017.02678

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2017.02678

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<p>Nisin is a known bacteriocin, which exhibits a wide spectrum of antimicrobial activity, while commonly being inefficient against Gram-negative bacteria. In this work, we present a proof of concept of novel antimicrobial methodology using targeted magnetic nisin-loaded nano-carriers [iron oxide nanoparticles (NPs) (11–13 nm) capped with citric, ascorbic, and gallic acids], which are activated by high pulsed electric and electromagnetic fields allowing to overcome the nisin-resistance of bacteria. As a cell model the Gram-positive bacteria <italic>Bacillus subtilis</italic> and Gram-negative <italic>Escherichia coli</italic> were used. We have applied 10 and 30 kV cm<sup>-1</sup> electric field pulses (100 μs × 8) separately and in combination with two pulsed magnetic field protocols: (1) high d<italic>B</italic>/d<italic>t</italic> 3.3 T × 50 and (2) 10 mT, 100 kHz, 2 min protocol to induce additional permeabilization and local magnetic hyperthermia. We have shown that the high d<italic>B</italic>/d<italic>t</italic> pulsed magnetic fields increase the antimicrobial efficiency of nisin NPs similar to electroporation or magnetic hyperthermia methods and a synergistic treatment is also possible. The results of our work are promising for the development of new methods for treatment of the drug-resistant foodborne pathogens to minimize the risks of invasive infections.</p>