Bacterial biofilms represent an essential part of Earth’s ecosystem that can cause multiple ecological, technological and health problems.  The environmental resilience and sophisticated organization of biofilms are enabled by the extracellular matrix that creates a protective network of biomolecules around the bacterial community.  Current anti-biofilm agents can interfere with extracellular matrix production but, being based on small molecules, are degraded by bacteria and rapidly diffuse away from biofilms.  Both factors severely reduce their efficacy, while their toxicity to higher organisms create additional barriers to their practicality.  In this work we investigated on the ability of engineered nanoparticles such as graphene quantum dots and zinc oxide nanopyramid to effectively disperse mature amyloid-rich biofilms, interfering with the self-assembly of amyloid fibers - a key structural component of the extracellular matrix. Experimental and computational results show that mimicking protein-binding biomolecules, nanoparticles can form supramolecular complexes with amyloid protein, which disrupts their fibrillation and represents a strategy for mitigation of bacterial communities.<br/>

Anti-biofilm activity of nanoparticles via self-assembly with bacterial amyloid proteins

2019 Fall National Meeting

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