Antimicrobial effect of meropenem-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles against carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa | ||||
Microbes and Infectious Diseases | ||||
Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 20 January 2025 | ||||
Document Type: Original Article | ||||
DOI: 10.21608/mid.2025.347029.2410 | ||||
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Authors | ||||
Esraa Mostafa Mohamed ![]() | ||||
1Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt | ||||
2Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt | ||||
Abstract | ||||
Background: The emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) poses a significant threat to both hospital and community-acquired infections. The growing challenge of meropenem resistance in P. aeruginosa is a notable concern. Among the various mechanisms contributing to this resistance, efflux pumps MexAB-OprM systems are known to be the largest and the only intrinsic multidrug resistant efflux pumps within P. aeruginosa. The broad substrate specificity of the MexAB-OprM efflux pump system makes mexB gene overexpression crucial for the intrinsic resistance of P. aeruginosa to various antimicrobials. Meropenem loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) has been postulated to act as an efflux pump inhibitor. This study aimed to determine the antimicrobial effect of meropenem-loaded MSNs on carbapenem-resistant P. aeruginosa clinical isolates and to identify its effect on expression of efflux pump (mexB) gene. Methods:Thirty P. aeruginosa isolates were confirmed to be meropenem-resistant using disc diffusion method. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of meropenem and meropenem-loaded MSNs were determined using microbroth dilution (MBD) test. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to measure mexB gene expression before and after treatment with meropenem loaded MSNs. Results: The present study found that meropenem resistance occurred in 30/30 (100%) isolates giving MIC > 32 μg/ml by MBD test. On repeating the test using meropenem-loaded MSNs (24/30, 80 %) of the tested isolates showed reduction in MIC with highly statistically significant difference from (512-32 μg/ml) by meropenem alone to (256-8 μg/ml) by using meropenem loaded MSNs. Real-Time RT PCR confirmed the anti-bacterial activity of meropenem-loaded MSNs by revealing a high statistically significant reduction in gene expression (P value <0.001). Conclusion: Our results revealed that meropenem-loaded MSNs has an in vitro antibacterial action against meropenem- resistant P. aeruginosa isolates. | ||||
Keywords | ||||
Pseudomonas aeruginosa; meropenem; meropenem loaded MSNs; efflux pump; mexB gene | ||||
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