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Antimicrobial polymers: mechanism of action, factors of activity, and applications

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Abstract

Complex epidemiological situation, nosocomial infections, microbial contamination, and infection risks in hospital and dental equipment have led to an ever-growing need for prevention of microbial infection in these various areas. Macromolecular systems, due to their properties, allow one to efficiently use them in various fields, including the creation of polymers with the antimicrobial activity. In the past decade, the intensive development of a large class of antimicrobial macromolecular systems, polymers, and copolymers, either quaternized or functionalized with bioactive groups, has been continued, and they have been successfully used as biocides. Various permanent microbicidal surfaces with non-leaching polymer antimicrobial coatings have been designed. Along with these trends, new moderately hydrophobic polymer structures have been synthesized and studied, which contain protonated primary or secondary/tertiary amine groups that exhibited rather high antimicrobial activity, often unlike their quaternary analogues. This mini-review briefly highlights and summarizes the results of studies during the past decade and especially in recent years, which concern the mechanism of action of different antimicrobial polymers and non-leaching microbicidal surfaces, and factors influencing their activity and toxicity, as well as major applications of antimicrobial polymers.

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Notes

  1. It should be emphasized that poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PVP), prepared by free radical polymerization, should have medium polydispersity (PDI), i.e., the ratio M w/M n, where M n is the number-average molecular weight: 1.5 < PDI < 2. At the same time, branched PEI, which is obtained by cationic step polymerization, has large PDI for polymers with high MWs. According to the data of Sigma-Aldrich Chemical Co, the values are as follows: M w 2 kDa (by LS), M n 1.8 kDa (by GPC), PDI = 1.11; M w 25 kDa (by LS), M n 10 kDa (by GPC), PDI = 2.5; M w 750 kDa (by LS), M n 60 kDa (by GPC), PDI = 12.5. Thus, antimicrobial effect, which is observable for PEI with M w ≥25 kDa, should be averaged over the effect of polymers with molecular weights M w − M n within polydispersity range.

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  1. A.V.Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky prosp. 29, Moscow, 119991, Russia

    Larisa Timofeeva & Natalia Kleshcheva

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  1. Larisa Timofeeva
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Correspondence to Larisa Timofeeva.

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The authors are very grateful to Ms. Natasha Vasekina for her assistance in the preparation of figures.

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Timofeeva, L., Kleshcheva, N. Antimicrobial polymers: mechanism of action, factors of activity, and applications. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 89, 475–492 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-010-2920-9

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