Antifungal Nanoparticles and Surfaces

Nosocomial fungal infections, an increasing healthcare concern worldwide, are often associated with medical devices. We have developed antifungal nanoparticle conjugates that can act in suspension or attach to a surface, efficiently killing fungi. For that purpose; we immobilized covalently amphotericin B (AmB), a potent antifungal agent approved by the FDA, widely-used in clinical practice and effective against a large spectrum of fungi. into silica nanoparticles. These antifungal nanoparticle conjugates tire fungicidal against several strains of Candida sp., mainly by contact. In addition, they can be reused up to 5 cycles without losing their activity. Our results show that the antifungal nanoparticle conjugates are more fungistatic Mid fungicidal than 10 nm colloidal silver. the antifungal activity of the antifungal nanoparticle conjugates is Maintained when they are immobilized on a surface using a chemical adhesive formed-by polydopamine. The antifungal nanocoatings have no hemolytic or cytotoxic effect against red blood cells and blood mononuclear cells, respectively: Surfaces coated with these antifungal nanoparticle conjugates can he,cry useful to vendor medical devices with antifungal properties.