Multi-principal element nanoparticles
are an emerging class of
materials with potential applications in medicine and biology. However,
it is not known how such nanoparticles interact with bacteria at nanoscale.
In the present work, we evaluated the interaction of multi-principal
elemental alloy (FeNiCu) nanoparticles with Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria using the in situ graphene liquid cell (GLC) scanning transmission electron microscopy
(STEM) approach. The imaging revealed the details of bacteria wall
damage in the vicinity of nanoparticles. The chemical mappings of
S, P, O, N, C, and Cl elements confirmed the cytoplasmic leakage of
the bacteria. Our results show that there is selective release of
metal ions from the nanoparticles. The release of copper ions was
much higher than that for nickel while the iron release was the lowest.
In addition, the binding affinity of bacterial cell membrane protein
functional groups with Cu, Ni, and Fe cations is found to be the driving
force behind the selective metal cations’ release from the
multi-principal element nanoparticles. The protein functional groups
driven dissolution of multielement nanoparticles was evaluated using
the density functional theory (DFT) computational method, which confirmed
that the energy required to remove Cu atoms from the nanoparticle
surface was the least in comparison with those for Ni and Fe atoms.
The DFT results support the experimental data, indicating that the
energy to dissolve metal atoms exposed to oxidation and/or the to
presence of oxygen atoms at the surface of the nanoparticle catalyzes
metal removal from the multielement nanoparticle. The study shows
the potential of compositional design of multi-principal element nanoparticles
for the controlled release of metal ions to develop antibacterial
strategies. In addition, GLC-STEM is a promising approach for understanding
the nanoscale interaction of metallic nanoparticles with biological
structures.