Natural Bactericidal Surfaces: Mechanical Rupture of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Cells by Cicada Wings

Abstract

Natural superhydrophobic surfaces are often thought to have antibiofouling potential due to their self-cleaning properties. However, when incubated on cicada wings, Pseudomonas aeruginosa cells are not repelled; instead they are penetrated by the nanopillar arrays present on the wing surface, resulting in bacterial cell death. Cicada wings are effective antibacterial, as opposed to antibiofouling, surfaces.

Bactericidal nanospike surfaces via thermal oxidation of Ti alloy substrates

“…Even when gold-coated, nanospike surfaces resulted in a reduction in fluorescence and thus reduced bacterial viability relative to the control surface. This implied that the bactericidal effects were indeed caused by the topography of the surfaces and not the surface chemistry, in agreement with what has been found for both cicada wing surfaces [9] and black silicon surfaces [8]. To achieve effective bacterial lysis, the bacteria need to be exposed to topographies that generate sufficient local stress across the bacterial cell wall.…”

“…Recently, Ivanova et al [7][8][9] have demonstrated that nanopillar features on cicada wing surfaces have a bactericidal effect, which prevents biofilm formation by physically damaging bacterial cell walls.…”

Cicada Wing Surface Topography: An Investigation into the Bactericidal Properties of Nanostructural Features

“…This bacterial strain was purposely chosen for its autofluorescence properties as well as for its classification as Gram-negative, which was demonstrated as having distinct sensitivity towards nanostructures present on specific cicada wing samples. 16 The ME and CA wing samples exhibited higher levels of dead or injured cells on their surfaces. CA exhibited double the amount of SYTOX Green positive cells compared to the control surfaces, whereas ME cicada wings had the highest level of dead cells; three times higher than the control (Figure 4b).…”

“…5,16,19 In order to better understand the level of interaction between the nanostructure present on the various wings and bacterial cells, 3D models of each of the wings which have a periodic, uniform structure were prepared using the dimensions from Table 1. Figure 6 shows the 3D models of the nanostructures and how they interact with a model bacterium of the average size of that which was used in our cell testing.…”

Polypropylene – zinc oxide nanorod hybrid material for applications in separation processes

“…Results presented in the literature indicate that the new hybrid filter may find potential application in ventilation and air conditioning systems or as a personal respiratory protection when microbiological hazard needs to be considered due to the antibacterial activity of ZnO (Ivanova et al, 2012;Li et al, 2008;Li et al, 2013;Pogodin et al, 2013;Tam et al, 2008).…”