Artikel
Inactivation of Acetinobacter baumanii growth in a third-degree burn mouse model using Irreversible Electroporation (IRE)
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Veröffentlicht: | 3. September 2014 |
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Objective: Emerging bacterial resistance renders many antibiotics ineffective, making alternative strategies of wound disinfection important. Here we report on a new, physical burn wound disinfection method: irreversible electroporation (IRE). High voltage, short-pulsed electric fields (PEF) create non-thermal, permanent damage to cell membranes. In medicine, IRE has recently been used for non-thermal ablation of solid tumors. We have expanded the spectrum of IRE applications in medicine to the treatment of burn wounds.
Methods: A third-degree burn was induced on the dorsal skin of C57BL/6 mice. Immediately after the injury, the burn wound was infected with Acinetobacter baumannii expressing luxCDABE operon. Thirty minutes after infection, the infected areas were treated with 80 pulses delivered at 500 Vmm-1, 70µs, 1Hz. We used bioluminescence to quantify bacteria on skin. Three animals were used per experimental condition.
Results: IRE was effective in the disinfection of infected burn murine skin. The bacteria load reduction was correlated with the number of delivered pulses. Forty pulses of Vmm-1 led to 2.04 ± 0.29 Log10 reduction in bacteria load; 80 pulses led to the immediate 5.53 ± 0.30 Log10 reduction. Three hours after PEF, the bacteria reduction on the skin treated by 500 Vmm-1, 80 pulses was 4.91 ± 0.71 Log10.
Conclusions: We introduce a new method of wound disinfection using high voltage, short-PEF. We believe that IRE may represent an important alternative to antibiotics in addressing bacterial contamination of wounds, particularly those contaminated with multi-drug resistant bacteria.