Background: Novel methods are necessary to reduce morbidity and mortality of patients suffering from infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Being the most common infectious species of the Pseudomonas genus, P. aeruginosa is the primary Gram-negative etiology responsible for nosocomial infections. Due to the ubiquity and high adaptability of this species, an effective universal treatment method for P. aeruginosa infection still eludes investigators, despite the extensive research in this area. Results:We report bacterial inhibition by iron-oxide (nominally magnetite) nanoparticles (NPs) alone, having a mean hydrodynamic diameter of ~ 16 nm, as well as alginate-capped iron-oxide NPs. Alginate capping increased the average hydrodynamic diameter to ~ 230 nm. We also investigated alginate-capped iron-oxide NP-drug conjugates, with a practically unchanged hydrodynamic diameter of ~ 232 nm. Susceptibility and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the NPs, NP-tobramycin conjugates, and tobramycin alone were determined in the PAO1 bacterial colonies. Investigations into susceptibility using the disk diffusion method were done after 3 days of biofilm growth and after 60 days of growth. MIC of all compounds of interest was determined after 60-days of growth, to ensure thorough establishment of biofilm colonies. Conclusions:Positive inhibition is reported for uncapped and alginate-capped iron-oxide NPs, and the corresponding MICs are presented. We report zero susceptibility to iron-oxide NPs capped with polyethylene glycol, suggesting that the capping agent plays a major role in enabling bactericidal ability in of the nanocomposite. Our findings suggest that the alginate-coated nanocomposites investigated in this study have the potential to overcome the bacterial biofilm barrier. Magnetic field application increases the action, likely via enhanced diffusion of the iron-oxide NPs and NP-drug conjugates through mucin and alginate barriers, which are characteristic of cystic-fibrosis respiratory infections. We demonstrate that iron-oxide NPs coated with alginate, as well as alginate-coated magnetite-tobramycin conjugates inhibit P. aeruginosa growth and biofilm formation in established colonies. We have also determined that susceptibility to tobramycin decreases for longer culture times. However, susceptibility to the iron-oxide NP © The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article' s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article'

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Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited childhood-onset life-shortening disease. It is characterized by increased respiratory production, leading to airway obstruction, chronic lung infection and inflammatory reactions. The most common bacteria causing persisting infections in people with CF is Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Superparamagnetic Fe3O4 iron oxide nanoparticles (NPs) conjugated to the antibiotic (tobramycin), guided by a gradient of the magnetic field or subjected to an oscillating magnetic field, show promise in improving the drug delivery across the mucus and P. aeruginosa biofilm to the bacteria. The question remains whether tobramycin needs to be released from the NPs after the penetration of the mucus barrier in order to act upon the pathogenic bacteria. We used a zero-length 1-ethyl-3-[3-dimethylaminopropyl] carbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC) crosslinking agent to couple tobramycin, via its amine groups, to the carboxyl groups on Fe3O4 NPs capped with citric acid. The therapeutic efficiency of Fe3O4 NPs attached to the drug versus that of the free drug was investigated in P. aeruginosa culture.