Del Pozo JL, Rouse MS, Mandrekar JN, Sampedro MF, Steckelberg JM, Patel R
Effect of electrical current on the activity of antimicrobial agents against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis biofilms. [JOURNAL ARTICLE]
Antimicrob Agents Chemother 2008 Aug 25.
Bacterial biofilms are resistant to conventional antimicrobial agents. Prior in vitro studies have shown that electrical current (EC) enhances the activity of aminoglycosides, quinolones or oxytetracycline against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Escherichia coli or Streptococcus gordonii. This phenomenon, known as the bioelectric effect, has been only partially defined. The purpose of this work was to study the in vitro bioelectric effect using P. aeruginosa, methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and S. epidermidis with reference to eleven antimicrobial agents representing a variety of different classes. An eight channel current generator/controller and eight chambers delivering a continuous flow of fresh medium with or without antimicrobial agents and/or EC to biofilm coated coupons was used. No significant decreases in the number of log10 cfu/cm(2) were seen after exposure to antimicrobial agents alone with the exception of a 4.57 log reduction for S. epidermidis and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. We detected a statistically significant bioelectric effect when vancomycin plus 2000 microamps EC were used against MRSA biofilms (p=0.04), and when daptomycin and erythromycin were used in combination with 200 or 2000 microamps EC against S. epidermidis biofilms (p=0.02 and 0.0004, respectively). Results of these experiments indicate that the enhanced activity of antimicrobial agents by EC against biofilm organisms is not a generalizable phenomenon across microorganisms and antimicrobial agents.
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