The synergistic effect of visible light and gentamycin on Pseudomona aeruginosa microorganisms

Recently there were several publications on the bactericidal effect of visible light, most of them claiming that blue part of the spectrum (400 nm-500 nm) is responsible for killing various pathogens(1-5). The phototoxic effect of blue light was suggested to be a result of light-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation by endogenous bacterial photosensitizers which mostly absorb light in the blue region(4,6,7). There are also reports of biocidal effect of red and near infra red(8) as well as green light(9). In the present study, we developed a method that allowed us to characterize the effect of high power green (wavelength of 532 nm) continuous (CW) and pulsed Q-switched (Q-S) light on Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Using this method we also studied the effect of green light combined with antibiotic treatment (gentamycin) on the bacteria viability. P. aeruginosa is a common noscomial opportunistic pathogen causing various diseases. The strain is fairly resistant to various antibiotics and contains many predicted AcrB/Mex-type RND multidrug efflux systems(10). The method utilized free-living stationary phase Gram-negative bacteria (P. aeruginosa strain PAO1), grown in Luria Broth (LB) medium exposed to Q-switched and/or CW lasers with and without the addition of the antibiotic gentamycin. Cell viability was determined at different time points. The obtained results showed that laser treatment alone did not reduce cell viability compared to untreated control and that gentamycin treatment alone only resulted in a 0.5 log reduction in the viable count for P. aeruginosa. The combined laser and gentamycin treatment, however, resulted in a synergistic effect and the viability of P. aeruginosa was reduced by 8 log's. The proposed method can further be implemented via the development of catheter like device capable of injecting an antibiotic solution into the infected organ while simultaneously illuminating the area with light.