Antifouling agents : functionalization of surfaces to obtain novel medical device materials inhibiting biofilm formation

Infections are frequent complications of many invasive surgical, therapeutic and diagnostic procedures. Biofilm plays a pivotal role in healthcare-associated infections, especially those related to the implant of medical devices, such as vascular and urinary catheters and orthopaedic implants. In order to improve the long-termed maintenance of implants and to inhibit biofilm formation, the material surface, e.g., polyethylene or silicon, can be modified by chemical functionalization and subsequently grafted with molecules having known anti-biofilm activities. In a previous study, a new series of chemically modified molecules, related to zosteric acid and salicylic acid scaffold, were investigated with the aim to better understand the structural characteristics responsible for the antifouling activity and to define the requirements essential to hinder biofilm formation.Their biological investigation on E. coli growth led us to the identification of several commercially available molecules as suitable anti-biofilm compounds for grafting to polymers. In details, the polymeric surface was activated by using physical and chemical methods, without changing their bulk properties. Then, the graft-polymerization with a linker and the immobilization of the selected bioactive molecules on the polymeric surface provided the new material. The activation of the polymeric surface and the subsequent analysis carried out to characterize the new materials and to evaluate their inhibitory activity against E. coli biofilm will be reported.