Self-cleaning plastic surfaces that repel drug resistance bacteria

Foodborne hazards result to a disease burden of 91 million acute illness and 137 000 deaths in Africa annually, with the most affected being children under 5-years, expectant mothers, the elderly and the immunocompromised.  

Scientists at the McMaster University, School of Biomedical Engineering have developed a flexible antibacterial plastic wrap that could help prevent the spread of foodborne illness when used to package raw meat and meat products. These engineered surfaces have a potential to reduce the adhesion, proliferation, and spread of bacteria and hold a promise to prevent infections and reducing the use of antibiotics.

The non-stick coating has been scientifically designed to repel all external molecules (inclusive of bacteria such as Salmonella, Escherichia coli and potentially dangerous pathogens. The material has been tested and successfully shown through electron microscopy to decrease biofouling by Methicillin Resistance Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa which are both priority pathogens according to the World Health Organization that pose a substantial threat to morbidity and mortality worldwide.

To understand if the surfaces were effective in reducing the spread of bacteria by serving as an intermediate transfer surface, the researchers developed a “touch-assay”. They showed that the application of this hierarchical surface onto everyday items and medical devices reduced the transfer of E. coli onto these objects from a contaminated agar plug. As a result, less E. coli was transferred to human skin that came into contact with the contaminated hierarchical surfaces compared to contaminated control surfaces.

Possible application of the technology

• Production tables or the packaging itself could solve a lot of issues we’re dealing with these days in terms of bacterial contamination
• The self-cleaning plastic surface could also be shrink-wrapped onto doorknobs, bed tables, bed rails, and other high-risk surfaces to prevent the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
• Additionally, since the hierarchical surfaces are fabricated through all-solution-processing, they would be amenable to large area applications and large volume manufacturing, being applicable to a wide range of surfaces that have a risk of being in contact with liquid-borne contaminants.

References

• Reprint with persmission from (Imani, S. M., Maclachlan, R., Rachwalski, K., Chan, Y., Lee, B., McInnes, M., . . . Soleymani, L. (2020). Flexible Hierarchical Wraps Repel Drug-Resistant Gram-Negative and Positive Bacteria. ACS Nano, 14(1), 454-465. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsnano.9b06287#). Copyright (2020) American Chemical Society
• Doughman, Elizabeth (2020) Nonstick coating keeps pathogens away from meat packaging. Published on Wattagnet website on 7^th February 2020. Available at: https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/39619-nonstick-coating-keeps-pathogens-away-from-meat-packaging
• World Health Organisation (2017) WHO publishes list of bacteria for which new antibiotics are urgently. Published on 27^th February 2017. Available at:  https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/27-02-2017-who-publishes-list-of-bacteria-for-which-new-antibiotics-are-urgently-needed