title: Exploring the potential of magnetic antimicrobial agents for water disinfection.
abstract: Industrial and urban activities yield large amounts of contaminated groundwater, which present a major health issue worldwide. Infectious diseases are the most common health risk associated with drinking-water and wastewater remediation is a major concern of our modern society. The field of wastewater treatment is being revolutionized by new nano-scale water disinfection devices which outperform most currently available technologies. In particular, iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been widely used in environmental applications due to their unique physical-chemical properties. In this work, poly(ethylene) glycol (PEG)-coated MNPs have been functionalized with (RW)3, an antimicrobial peptide, to yield a novel magnetic-responsive support with antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli K-12 DSM498 and Bacillus subtilis 168. The magnetic-responsive antimicrobial device showed to be able to successfully disinfect the surrounding solution. Using a rapid high-throughput screening platform, the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined to be 500 μM for both strains with a visible bactericidal effect.
authors.affiliation: REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. Electronic address: asp14526@campus.fct.unl.pt.
authors.forename: Ana S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Pina
authors.affiliation: REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
authors.forename: Íris L
authors.initials: ÍL
authors.lastname: Batalha
authors.affiliation: REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
authors.forename: Cláudia S M
authors.initials: CSM
authors.lastname: Fernandes
authors.affiliation: REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
authors.forename: Matheus A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Aoki
authors.affiliation: REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. Electronic address: cecilia.roque@fct.unl.pt.
authors.forename: Ana C A
authors.initials: ACA
authors.lastname: Roque
mesh_terms: D000890:Anti-Infective Agents; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols / Q000737:chemistry; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000890:Anti-Infective Agents; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols
keywords: 96-Well format; Antimicrobial peptides; High-throughput screening; Magnetic nanoparticles; Wastewater treatment