Robust Coatings via Catechol-Amine Codeposition: Mechanism, Kinetics, and Application

Catechol cross-linked antimicrobial peptide hydrogels prevent multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infection in burn wounds

Hospital-acquired infections are common in burn patients and are the major contributors of morbidity and mortality. Bacterial infections such as Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) are difficult to treat due to their biofilm formation and rapidly acquiring resistance to antibiotics. This work presents a newly developed hydrogel that has the potential for treating bacterial wound infections. The hydrogel formulation is based on an antimicrobial peptide (AMP), epsilon-poly-l-lysine (EPL) and catechol, which was cross-linked via mussel-inspired chemistry between the amine and phenol groups. In vitro studies showed that EPL-catechol hydrogels possess impressive antimicrobial and antibiofilm properties toward multidrug-resistant A. baumannii (MRAB). In addition, cytotoxicity study with the clonal mouse myoblast cell line (C2C12) revealed the good biocompatibility of this hydrogel. Furthermore, we created a second-degree burn wound on the mice dorsal skin surface followed by contamination with MRAB. Our results showed that the hydrogel significantly reduced the bacterial burden by more than four orders of magnitude in infected burn wounds. Additionally, there was no significant histological alteration with hydrogel application on mice skin. Based on these results, we concluded that EPL-catechol hydrogel is a promising future biomaterial to fight against multidrug-resistant bacterial infections.

Codeposition Modification of Cation Exchange Membranes with Dopamine and Crown Ether To Achieve High K+ Electrodialysis Selectivity

Surface modification has been proven to be an effective approach for ion exchange membranes to achieve separation of counterions with different valences by altering interfacial construction of membranes to improve ion transfer performance. In this work, we have fabricated a series of novel cation exchange membranes (CEMs) by modifying sulfonated polysulfone (SPSF) membranes via codeposition of mussel-inspired dopamine (DA) and 4'-aminobenzo-15-crown-5 (ACE), followed by glutaraldehyde cross-linking, aiming at achieving selective separation of specific cations. The as-prepared membranes before and after modification were systematically characterized in terms of their structural, physicochemical, electrochemical, and electrodialytic properties. In the electrodialysis process, the modified membranes exhibit distinct perm selectivity to K⁺ ions in binary (K⁺/Li⁺, K⁺/Na⁺, K⁺/Mg²⁺) and ternary (K⁺/Li⁺/Mg²⁺) systems. In particular, at a constant current density of 5.0 mA·cm^-2, modified membrane M-co-0.50 shows significantly prominent perm selectivity [Formula: see text] in the K⁺/Mg²⁺ system and M-co-0.75 exhibits remarkable performance in the K⁺/Li⁺ system [Formula: see text], superior to commercial monovalent-selective CEM (CIMS, [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text]). Besides, in the K⁺/Li⁺/Mg²⁺ ternary system, K⁺ flux reaches 30.8 nmol·cm^-2·s^-1 for M-co-0.50, while it reaches 25.8 nmol·cm^-2·s^-1 for CIMS. It possibly arises from the effects of pore-size sieving and the synergistic action of electric field driving and host-guest molecular recognition of ACE and K⁺ ions. This study can provide new insights into the separation of specific alkali metal ions, especially on reducing influence of coexisting cations K⁺ and Na⁺ on Li⁺ ion recovery from salt lake and seawater.