Antibacterial Activity of Oxygen Vacancy-Mediated ROS Production of V6O13 Powder against Candida albicans

Abstract

The emergence of drug resistance due to the overuse of antibiotics has made the prevention and treatment of invasive fungal infections caused by Candida albicans (C. albicans) a great challenge. Oxygen vacancy-rich inorganic materials show great promise in the antimicrobial field due to their unique physicochemical properties. Defect engineering can significantly optimize the electronic structure of inorganic materials to further enhance their antimicrobial activity. We designed oxygen vacancy defect-rich V6O13 powders using the hydrothermal-calcination method and investigated their anti-C. albicans activity. The results showed that the stronger antibacterial activity is attributed to the fact that the optimized V6O13 powder oxygen vacancy defects induced a reduction reaction of dissolved oxygen in the environment, which produced ROS with strong oxidative properties, causing damage to the wall membrane of C. albicans and leakage of intracellular material. The minimum inhibitory concentration (99% or more inhibition) of V6O13 powders is 4 mg/mL. This work not only provides a facile method for constructing oxygen-rich vacancies in V6O13 powders, but also provides new insights into the potential of inorganic materials optimized by defect engineering for efficient antimicrobial activity.

Structures, Phase Stability, Amorphization, and Decomposition of V6O13 at High Pressures and Temperatures: Synthesis of Rutile-Related V0.92O2

“…Their magnetic and electronic transitions have recently been proposed for volatile resistive switching devices and neuromorphic computing . Most of them undergo metal–insulator transitions ( MITs ) often associated with changes in optical properties. , The versatility of a vanadium cation to assume different valence states, its changing local environment, and the flexibility of the framework geometry of coordination polyhedra allow for the reversible intercalation of various ions, enabling for instance medical or electrochemical − applications.…”