Text

theses

In light of concerns in recent years of the emergence of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria, this project involves developing a novel kind of nanoparticle for targeting and killing multi drug resistant E. coli. In this approach, we combine the essence of two well researched fields – nanoparticle and bacteriophage therapy to develop a novel nanoparticle. The protein that helps the bacteriophage M13 infect E. coli is identified, isolated, and conjugated on the surface of a mesoporous silica nanoparticle bearing a magnetic core. The mesoporous silica shell can be packed with ROS generators like porphyrin; and the resulting nanoparticle (aptly termed ‘NanoPhage’ has the ability to selectively target and kill E. coli when subjected to magnetic hyperthermia and photodynamic therapy. Multiple drug resistant Escherichia coli BL21DE3 are treated with NanoPhage and the temperature is raised to 42 °C and 48 °C (individually) to show significant bacterial killing efficiency. The bacteria survival rate after 24 hours can be down to as low as 10% after simultaneous therapy of hyperthermia and photodynamic therapy after 30 minutes of treatment, owing to denaturation of proteins in the cell body and the cell membrane of E. coli, and ROS generation by porphyrin – that oxidizes the membrane-associated complexes of bacteria. These results indicate that NanoPhage-based physical treatment can be an alternative strategy to kill bacteria without acquiring antibiotic resistance and can be used for many purposes - thus inspiring therapeutic and environmental applications.

ETD_9344

M.S.

Includes bibliographical references

by Farzana Nushin Rezvi

doi:10.7282/t3-qzqe-bh67

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.