Synergetic Polymer / antibiotic systems for the treatment of biofilm infections

病原体可以通过形成一种被称为生物膜的保护性结构，在包括抗生素治疗在内的环境威胁中存活下来。这种保护意味着由形成生物膜的病原体引起的感染很难治疗。在全球范围内，生物膜感染与高住院率、高死亡率和高费用有关。需要一种抗生素的替代品来改善生物膜感染的治疗。一个潜在的替代品是合成抗菌肽聚合物。这些抗菌肽聚合物模拟了所有生物中天然存在的抗菌肽。天然多肽不适合广泛应用；然而，可以设计合成模拟物来改进这些局限性，从而创造出一种可以在医院使用的潜在治疗方法。先前的工作已经强调，将这些抗菌聚合物与当前的抗菌治疗相结合，可以治疗由不同病原体引起的生物膜感染，而抗生素单独治疗无效。这种相互作用是有希望的，但需要更多地了解这种相互作用背后的机制。这个跨学科的项目将结合化学和微生物学来提高我们对聚合物-抗菌剂相互作用的理解。这个项目的化学方面将包括一系列聚合物和抗菌剂之间相互作用的合成和分析研究，以了解它们在一起的行为。该聚合物将用于治疗呼吸道和伤口的生物膜感染模型。将使用成像技术和生物信息学分析来监测生物膜细菌的变化，以确定单独使用聚合物、单独使用抗菌剂和聚合物+抗菌剂对细菌的影响。这项工作的结果将使我们能够设计出可用于临床试验的最佳聚合物-抗菌药物组合。

Pathogens can survive environmental threats, including antibiotic treatment, by forming a protective structure known as a biofilm. This protection means that infections caused by biofilm-forming pathogens are difficult to treat. Globally, biofilm infections are associated with high rates of hospitalisation, mortality, and cost. An alternative to antibiotics is required to improve treatment of biofilm infections. One potential alternative is synthetic antimicrobial peptide polymers. These antimicrobial peptide polymers mimic the antimicrobial peptides that are naturally found in all living creatures. The natural peptides are not suitable for widespread use; however, the synthetic mimics can be designed to improve on the limitations to create a potential treatment that could be used in hospitals. Previous work has highlighted that the combined use of these antimicrobial polymers alongside current antimicrobial treatments could treat biofilm infections caused by different pathogens where antibiotics alone fail. This interaction is promising but more needs to be known about the mechanisms behind this interaction. This interdisciplinary project will combine chemistry and microbiology to improve our understanding of polymer-antimicrobial interactions. The chemistry side of this project will include the synthesis and analytical study of interactions between a range of polymers and antimicrobials to see how they behave together. The polymers will be used to treat models of biofilm infection in the respiratory tract and in wounds. Changes in the biofilm bacteria will be monitored using imaging techniques and bioinformatic analysis to identify what effects the polymers alone, antimicrobials alone and polymers+antimicrobials have on the bacteria. The results of this work will allow us to design the optimal polymer-antimicrobial combinations that can be taken forward for clinical testing.