Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Cold Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma Caused Protein Damage In Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Cells In Biofilms, Li Guo, Lu Yang, Yu Qi, Gulimire Niyazi, Lingling Huang, Lu Gou, Zifeng Wang, Lei Zhang, Dingxin Liu, Xiaohua Wang, Hailan Chen, Michael G. Kong

Bioelectrics Publications

Biofilms formed by multidrug-resistant bacteria are a major cause of hospital-acquired infections. Cold atmospheric-pressure plasma (CAP) is attractive for sterilization, especially to disrupt biofilms formed by multidrug-resistant bacteria. However, the underlying molecular mechanism is not clear. In this study, CAP effectively reduced the living cells in the biofilms formed by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and 6 min treatment with CAP reduced the S. aureus cells in biofilms by 3.5 log₁₀. The treatment with CAP caused the polymerization of SaFtsZ and SaClpP proteins in the S. aureus cells of the biofilms. In vitro analysis demonstrated that recombinant SaFtsZ lost …