570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie
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In the present study we report on the ability of gold nanoparticles (AuNP) to enhance the antimicrobial activity of the photosensitizer Rose Bengal (RB), a very effective singlet oxygen generator. Our experiments were conducted using a suspension of Escherichia Coli in the presence of either RB or a combination of RB and AuNP. Nanoparticles were synthesized by laser ablation in water, which allows high purity, biologically friendly AuNP production, as compared to traditional chemical methods. Several relative concentrations of bacteria, photosensitizes and AuNP were studied. Bacterial survival rates were determined before and after LED light illumination. The phototoxicity of RB with and without AuNP was checked following illumination for 10 and 20 minutes. As a control, the dark toxicity of RB was verified. The results show that the survival rate of bacteria decreases significantly with the increase of RB concentration and illumination time, which is in accordance with previous works. Interestingly, our results also indicate a significant increase in the lethal photosensitization of RB in the presence of AuNP. We propose this effect is due to plasmonic light enhancement, considering the superposition of RB and AuNP absorption spectra, which favors electric field enhancement effects in the presence of AuNP. Similar experiments using the photosensitizer Methylene Blue (MB) allowed us to test our hypothesis for MB did not show any difference in its phototoxicity in the presence of AuNP. We propose this observed synergistic effect could be an effective way for improving photodynamic inactivation of microorganisms.
Most biochemical reactions depend on the pH value of the aqueous environment and some are strongly favoured to occur in an acidic environment. A non-invasive control of pH to tightly regulate such reactions with defined start and end points is a highly desirable feature in certain applications, but has proven difficult to achieve so far. We report a novel optical approach to reversibly control a typical biochemical reaction by changing the pH and using acid phosphatase as a model enzyme. The reversible photoacid G-acid functions as a proton donor, changing the pH rapidly and reversibly by using high power UV LEDs as an illumination source in our experimental setup. The reaction can be tightly controlled by simply switching the light on and off and should be applicable to a wide range of other enzymatic reactions, thus enabling miniaturization and parallelization through non-invasive optical means.