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Antibiotic-like boron nitride nanosheets for combating drug resistant bacteria
May 17, 2022 (Nanowerk Spotlight)

The emergence of drug resistant pathogenic bacteria is rapidly spreading across the globe, jeopardizing the efficacy of antibiotics, which have been considered to be one of the most prominent game-changers in the history of medicine.
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Recently, boron nitride (BN) has attracted a great deal of attention due to its physical and chemical properties, such as high-temperature resistance, oxidation resistance, heat conduction, electrical insulation, and neutron absorption.

The unique lamellar, reticular, and tubular morphologies and physicochemical properties of BN make it attractive in the fields of adsorption, catalysis, hydrogen storage, thermal conduction, insulation, dielectric substrate of electronic devices, radiation protection, polymer composites, medicine, etc.
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In a new study, a team of researchers from China and Netherlands have shown that boron nitride (BN) nanosheets as a nano-antibacterial agent displays antibiotic-like activities (ACS Nano, "Antibiotic-Like Activity of Atomic Layer Boron Nitride for Combating Resistant Bacteria").

BN nanosheets were found to show potent antibacterial efficiency in five multidrug resistant bacteria strains, namely antimicrobial resistant E. coli, P. aeruginosa, S. aureus, L. crispatus, and Ag-resistant E. coli). Furthermore, they did not trigger the evolution of antimicrobial resistance in their long-term use and displayed excellent biocompatibility in mammals.
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In contrast to other antimicrobial agents, BN exhibited persistent antibacterial activity in antimicrobial resistant E. coli, failing to trigger secondary resistance. These data indicate that BN nanosheets as an antibacterial agent of superbugs did not induce the antimicrobial resistance evolution.
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The strong binding affinity of BN and recombinant EnvC protein demonstrated the capability of BN nanosheets to impact cell division.

Unlike other reported antimicrobial nanoparticles, BN nanosheets have the capability to differentiate between mammalian cells and bacteria, as evidenced by the strong inhibition of bacteria proliferation and negligible toxicity in mammals.

Paper:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.1c11353