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Ultrasound-Targeted Microbubble Destruction Enhances Human β-Defensin 3 Activity Against Antibiotic-Resistant Staphylococcus Biofilms

Inflammation volume 36, pages 983–996 (2013)Cite this article

Abstract

The infection of orthopedic implantation devices with Staphylococcus is a serious concern within the biomaterial community. Treatments are not always successful because of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and serious biofilm infections. Human β-defensin 3 (hBD-3) is considered to be the most promising class of defensin antimicrobial peptides and its effect on antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus biofilms, combined with ultrasound (US)-targeted microbubble (MB) destruction (UTMD), has not been reported. In the study, we found that biofilm densities, the percentage of live cells and the viable counts of two tested Staphylococcus recovered from the biofilm were significantly decreased in the maximum concentration hBD-3 combined with UTMD compared with those of any other groups. Furthermore, results suggested that UTMD could also enhance 1MIC hBD-3 activity inhibiting the biofilm-associated genes expression of icaAD and the methicillin-resistance genes expression of MecA by simultaneously promoting the icaR expression. UTMD may have great potential for improving antibiotic activity against biofilm infections.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Interdisciplinary (Engineering-Medical) Research Fund of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Grant No. YG2011MS30), Shanghai Municipal Health Bureau Science Fund for Young Scholars (Grant No. 2010QJ036A), the Opening Project of State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure (Grant No. SKL201206SIC), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81171688).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, No. 600 Yishan Road, Shanghai, 200233, China

    Chen Zhu, Tao Cheng, Yongyuan Guo, Desheng Chen, Mengqi Cheng, Zhi Yang & Xianlong Zhang

  2. Department of Ultrasound, Anhui Provincial Hospital of Anhui Medical University, No. 9 Lujiang Road, Hefei, 230001, China

    Nianan He

  3. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Zhizaoju Road 639, Shanghai, 200011, China

    Honglue Tan

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  1. Chen Zhu
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  2. Nianan He
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  3. Tao Cheng
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  9. Xianlong Zhang
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Correspondence to Xianlong Zhang.

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Zhu, C., He, N., Cheng, T. et al. Ultrasound-Targeted Microbubble Destruction Enhances Human β-Defensin 3 Activity Against Antibiotic-Resistant Staphylococcus Biofilms. Inflammation 36, 983–996 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10753-013-9630-2

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KEY WORDS

  • ultrasound
  • microbubbles
  • Staphylococcus
  • biofilm
  • β-defensin