Analysis of disruptive action of electrical current on cell membrane integrity and modelling its antimicrobial...

It is essential to eliminate harmful microbes from vital aspects of our lives, including dental instruments and other healthcare devices, cosmetics, foods, and products that come into contact with them. Electrical stimulation (ES) has been proposed to address the recent problems of developing resistance to chemical antimicrobial agents. Therefore, additional research is needed to determine the ideal voltage and exposure time for this application, and it would be beneficial to have a predictive tool for its use. In this study, different voltages were applied for various time periods to determine whether electrical stimulation at different ES levels could inhibit the growth of Gram-negative E. coli, P. aeruginosa, and Gram-positive S. aureus, S. epidermidis. Bacterial growth was significantly inhibited by ES application for all strains. Different zones of inhibition were demonstrated by the cathode and anode. Next, we examined the effect of ES on bacterial cell membrane integrity. Our data indicate that ES treatment disrupts the cell membrane integrity of E. coli and S. aureus cells. We then analyzed and modeled the inhibition zone diameter data using three machine learning regression. support vector regression, random forest regression, and Gaussian process regression (GPR). The GPR method proved to be the best-performing machine learning model and was therefore used to develop software that predicts inhibition zone diameters based on given predictive values. In conclusion, our results indicate that ES is an effective antimicrobial application that disrupts cell membrane and we believe that it can effectively be used for sterilization and infection management.