Conventional antibiotic-based treatment of bacterial
infections
remains one of the most difficult challenges in medicine because of
the threat of multidrug resistance caused by indiscriminate abuse.
To solve these problems, it is essential to develop an effective antibacterial
agent that can be used at a small dose while minimizing the occurrence
of multiple resistance. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), which
are hyper-porous hybrid materials containing metal ions linked by
organic ligands, have recently attracted attention because of their
strong antibacterial activity through metal-ion release, unlike conventional
antibiotics. In this study, we developed a photoactive MOF-derived
cobalt–silver bimetallic nanocomposite (Ag@CoMOF) by simply
depositing silver nanoparticles on a cobalt-based MOF through nanoscale
galvanic replacement. The nanocomposite structure continuously releases
antibacterial metal ions (i.e., Ag and Co ions) in the aqueous phase
and exhibits a strong photothermal conversion effect of Ag nanoparticles,
accompanied by a rapid temperature increase of 25–80 °C
under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation. Using this MOF-based bimetallic
nanocomposite, superior antibacterial activities were achieved by
22.1-fold for Escherichia coli and
18.3-fold for Bacillus subtilis enhanced
inhibition of bacterial growth in a liquid culture environment compared
with the generally used chemical antibiotics. In addition, we confirmed
the synergistic enhancement of the antibacterial ability of the bimetallic
nanocomposite induced by NIR-triggered photothermal heating and bacterial
membrane disruption even when using a small amount of the nanocomposites.
We envision that this novel antibacterial agent using MOF-based nanostructures
will replace traditional antibiotics to circumvent multidrug resistance
and present a new approach to antibiotic development.