Nowadays food and textile industries as well as health centers have employed advanced technologies and precaution measures which prevent bacteria proliferation and distribution among staff, consumers and patients. 1-3. These technologies and measures aren't always effective to fulfill the aseptic requirements. One of the main objectives to aseptic conditions is related to the necessity for the treatment of surfaces, tools and working materials by decontaminants. The application of chemotherapeutics or antibiotics isn't always a good choicesince they may be in direct contact with the product, or may migrate and cause the transfer of contaminants into the product 3. Some organic compounds used for desinfection purposes pose some disadvantages, including their toxicity for the human body 4. Thereofore there is an increasing of interest in using of inoarganic disenfectants, such as metal nanoparticles (NPs)5. Furthermore, a crucial factor related to the use of chemotherapeutics and antibiotics is the enhancement of resistant bacteria toward these decontaminant agents 6. Therefore it's necessary to develop new compounds wich would show baktericide properties also toward bacterial species immuned with special resistance or multiresistance to antibiotics 6, 7. Bacteria with enhanced resistance are often found in hospital operations as a consequence of long-term antibiotics administration to patients, leading to genetic mutations and formation of various defense systems against damaging mechanism of antibiotics 8. The most resistant form which evolved from the bacteria S. aureus is methicilin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Enhanced resistance to antibiotics or other bactericidal agents in staphylococ is present due to the variable genetic element such as pathogenicity islands genome, plasmids, transpons and others. The responsible gene for resistance enhancement in MRSA if found in the staphyloccocal chromosomal cassette mec (SCCmec) 9. The integration of SCCmec into the genome of S. aureus leads to methicillin-resistant strain (MRSA) which is resistant to nearly all β-lactam antibiotics. The resistance toward methicillin is dedicated to the presence of penicillin-binding protein 2a (PBP2a) and the β-lactamase enzyme that cleaves β-lactam antibiotics (penicillin-based antibiotics), and is encoded by the mecA gene 10. The PBP2a is an analogue of PBP transpeptidases whose presence is essential for normal cell, as they play an important role in cell-wall synthesis 11. The presence of β-lactam antibiotics inhibit their function, and the cell loses its ability to produce cell wall and consequently dies. However PBP2a exhibits a low affinity toward β-lactam antibiotics, therefore is not subject to their inhibition 9. All of this lead to cost uneffective and time consuming therapy for hospitalized patients with MRSA 12.The treatment of surfaces, tools, fabrics or packages with antibacterial agents in the above mentioned areas is an absolute necessity, and it is therefore it is necessary to ensure an effective treating agent with pronounced antibacterial effect. Such a property is prone of metal nanoparticles 13, graphene oxide (GO) or biofunctionalized graphene 14. Graphene with antimicrobial effect is used in containers for food packaging or for the coating of biomedical devices, wherein the bacterial colonization on the surface are unwanted 15. Modification of graphene metal nanoparticles with antibacterial effect streamlines this effect.

Central European Institute of Technology Brno University of Technology

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Mendel University in Brno

Literatura