Staphylococcus aureus adhesion to standard micro-rough and electropolished implant materials

Abstract

Implant-associated infections can cause serious complications including osteomyelitis and soft tissue damage, and are a great problem due to the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In some cases, antibiotic-loaded beads which release the antibiotic locally have been used, however such systems may lead to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, as seen with gentamicin-loaded beads. Hence modifying the actual metal implant surface to inhibit or reduce initial bacterial adhesion may be an alternative option. This study describes the visualisation and quantification of S. aureus adhering to standard micro-rough 'commercially pure' titanium (TS) and Ti-6Al-7Nb (NS) surfaces, electropolished titanium (TE) and Ti-6Al-7Nb (NE) surfaces, and standard electropolished stainless steel (SS). Qualitative and quantitative results of S. aureus on the different surfaces correlated with each other, and showed significantly more live bacteria on NS than on the other surfaces, whilst there was no significant difference between the amount of bacteria on TS, TE, NE and SS surfaces. The results showed a significant decrease in the amount of bacteria adhering to the NE compared to standard NS surfaces. Such an observation suggests that the NS surface encouraged S. aureus adhesion, and could lead to higher infection rates in vivo. Hence electropolishing Ti-6Al-7Nb surfaces could be advantageous in osteosynthesis areas in minimising bacterial adhesion and lowering the rate of infection.

The Influence of Maggot Excretions on PAO1 Biofilm Formation on Different Biomaterials

“…Given the very low rate of BF, SSS seemed the best biomaterial in vitro. P. aeruginosa biofilms attached strong to TI in our study, according to Staphylococcus biofilms, as described by Harris et al [9]. Furthermore, in our study ES I3 resulted in a greater reduction of the biofilm than ES I1, although the protein concentration is equal in both ES.…”

Titanium and steel fracture fixation plates with different surface topographies: Influence on infection rate in a rabbit fracture model

“…microrough, polished), and the type of plate (e.g. locking compression plate (LCP), dynamic compression plate (DCP)) [4][5][6].…”

Biofilm formation by staphylococci on fresh, fresh-frozen and processed human and bovine bone grafts

“…Biofilm formation is a multi-step process (Gristina, 1987;An and Friedman, 1998) and extensive research on medical devices and their propensity for biofilm formation by staphylococci has been performed during the last years (Harris and Richards, 2006). Several factors, such as surface hydrophobicity (Jakubowski et al, 2008), surface charge (Oga et al, 1988), surface roughness (Harris et al, 2007) and surface chemistry (Abraham and Jefferson, 2010;MacKintosh et al, 2006;Patel et al, 2003;Patel et al, 2007) have been shown to influence biofilm formation.…”

“…Several factors, such as surface hydrophobicity (Jakubowski et al, 2008), surface charge (Oga et al, 1988), surface roughness (Harris et al, 2007) and surface chemistry (Abraham and Jefferson, 2010;MacKintosh et al, 2006;Patel et al, 2003;Patel et al, 2007) have been shown to influence biofilm formation. But the effect of these findings on bone grafts in clinical practice is unclear and the use of fresh autologous bone grafts is still regarded the standard procedure to fill bone defects (Delloye et al, 2007;De Long et al, 2007;Ketonis et al, 2010).…”