Effective and biocompatible antibacterial surfaces via facile synthesis and surface modification of peptide polymers

It is an urgent need to tackle drug-resistance microbial infections that are associated with implantable biomedical devices. Host defense peptide-mimicking polymers have been actively explored in recent years to fight against drug-resistant microbes. Our recent report on lithium hexamethyldisilazide-initiated superfast polymerization on amino acid N-carboxyanhydrides enables the quick synthesis of host defense peptide-mimicking peptide polymers. Here we reported a facile and cost-effective thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) surface modification of peptide polymer (DLL: BLG = 90 : 10) using plasma surface activation and substitution reaction between thiol and bromide groups. The peptide polymer-modified TPU surfaces exhibited board-spectrum antibacterial property as well as effective contact-killing ability in vitro. Furthermore, the peptide polymer-modified TPU surfaces showed excellent biocompatibility, displaying no hemolysis and cytotoxicity. In vivo study using methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) for subcutaneous implantation infectious model showed that peptide polymer-modified TPU surfaces revealed obvious suppression of infection and great histocompatibility, compared to bare TPU surfaces. We further explored the antimicrobial mechanism of the peptide polymer-modified TPU surfaces, which revealed a surface contact-killing mechanism by disrupting the bacterial membrane. These results demonstrated great potential of the peptide-modified TPU surfaces for practical application to combat bacterial infections that are associated with implantable materials and devices.