The effects of antibiotics
on bacterial infections are gradually
weakened, leading to the wide development of nanoparticle-based antibacterial
agents with unique physical and chemical properties and antibacterial
mechanisms different from antibiotics. In this study, we fabricated
the uniform and stable graphene oxide (GO)/Ni colloidal nanocrystal
cluster (NCNC) nanocomposite by electrostatic self-assembly and investigated
its synergistic antibacterial activity against
Staphylococcus
aureus
(
S. aureus
)
and
Escherichia coli
(
E. coli
) in vitro. The GO/NCNC nanocomposite was
shown to possess higher inhibition efficiency than a pure NCNC or
GO suspension, with 99.5 and 100% inhibition against
S. aureus
and
E. coli
at a 125 μg/mL concentration, respectively. Antibacterial
mechanism analysis revealed that (i) NCNCs decorated on GO can further
enhance the antibacterial properties of GO by binding and capturing
bacteria, (ii) the leaching of Ni
2+
was detected during
the interaction of GO/NCNCs and bacteria, resulting in a decrease
in the number of bacteria, and (iii) the GO/NCNC nanocomposite can
synergistically destroy the bacterial membrane through physical action
and induce the reactive oxygen species generation, so as to further
damage the cell membrane and affect ATPase, leakage of intercellular
contents, and ultimately bacterial growth inhibition. Meanwhile, cell
culture experiments demonstrated no adverse effect of GO/NCNCs on
cell growth. These preliminary results indicate the high antibacterial
efficiency of the GO/NCNC nanocomposite, suggesting the possibility
to develop it into an effective antibacterial agent in the future
against bacterial infections.