Rose bengal-encapsulated chitosan nanoparticles for the photodynamic treatment of Trichophyton species.

Rose bengal (RB) solutions coupled with a green laser have proven to be efficient in clearing resilient nail infections caused by Trichophyton rubrum in a human pilot study and in extensive in vitro experiments. Nonetheless, the RB solution can become diluted or dispersed over the tissue and prevented from penetrating the nail plate to reach the subungual area where fungal infection proliferates. Nanoparticles carrying RB can mitigate the problem of dilution and are reported to effectively penetrate through the nail. For this reason, we have synthesized RB-encapsulated chitosan nanoparticles with a peak distribution size of ~200 nm and high reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. The RB-encapsulated chitosan nanoparticles aPDT were shown to kill more than 99% of T. rubrum, T. mentagrophytes, and T. interdigitale spores, which are the common clinically relevant pathogens in onychomycosis. These nanoparticles are not cytotoxic against human fibroblasts, which promotes their safe application in clinical translation.

Effective photodynamic treatment of Trichophyton species with Rose Bengal.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) with Rose Bengal has previously achieved eradication of Trichophyton rubrum infections causing toenail onychomycosis; however, its antifungal activity against other clinically relevant dermatophytes has yet to be studied. Here, we test the efficacy of PDT using Rose Bengal (140 µM) and 532 nm irradiation (101 J/cm2 ) against Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Trichophyton interdigitale spores, in comparison to T. rubrum. A significant reduction (>99%) of T. mentagrophytes and T. interdigitale was observed, while actual eradication of viable T. rubrum was achieved (99.99%). Laser irradiation alone inhibited growth of T. rubrum (55.2%) and T. mentagrophytes (45.2%) significantly more than T. interdigitale (25.5%) (P = .0086), which may indicate an increased presence of fungal pigments, xanthomegnin and melanin. The findings suggest that Rose Bengal-PDT can act against a broader spectrum of fungal pathogens, and with continued development may be employed in a wider range of clinical antifungal applications.

Stability of active prophages in industrial Lactococcus lactis strains in the presence of heat, acid, osmotic, oxidative and antibiotic stressors.

Lactococcus lactis is a starter bacterium commonly used in cheese making where it has an important role in acid-mediated curd formation as well as the development of flavour compounds. Industrial L. lactis strains can harbour one or more inducible prophages which when induced can affect cell growth and possibly lead to cell lysis. This is undesirable during growth and fermentation, but can beneficially lead to faster release of enzymes during cheese ripening. Lactococci can encounter multiple stress inducing conditions during the production of cheese, such as low and high temperatures, low pH, high osmotic pressure and long-term incubation. In this study, we tested the effect of these industrial stressors on prophage induction in two cheese making L. lactis subsp. cremoris strains (ASCC890049 and ASCC890310) as well as the laboratory strain L. lactis MG1363. Firstly, in order to identify inducible prophages in these strains we exposed them to the prophage inducing chemical mitomycin C (MMC) for 1 and 2h and then subjected the total genomic DNA to next-generation Illumina sequencing. Mapping of sequence reads back to the genome sequences revealed regions which contained a much higher fold coverage indicating DNA replication. These regions were amplified by up to 332-fold per cell (relative to the control tufA gene) and were identified as having similarities to different subgroups of P335 phages including MG-5, TP901-1, ul36.k1, bIL286, TP712 and BK5-T. Next, quantitative PCR was used to confirm the strong induction of prophages by MMC and then determine the copy number of the inducible prophages following exposure to various growth inhibitory levels of HCl, lactic acid, high temperature, NaCl, hydrogen peroxide and bacitracin. With the exception of a slight induction (2 to 4-fold) with hydrogen peroxide and long-term incubation after 21days in one industrial strain, none of the other stressors induced prophage DNA replication. These findings show that the repression system that maintains prophages in the dormant state in cheese making lactococcal strains is very tight and that several stressors encountered singularly are not predicted to be major inducers of prophage activation.