Student Major/Year in School
Chemistry, fourth year
Faculty Mentor Information
Stefan H. Bossmann, Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University
Abstract
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria has become a rising problem since the first antibiotic was created, further aggravated by the improper overuse to treat common infections, because of this pharmaceutical companies must keep making new and stronger antibiotics. Surfactants are plentiful and effective killers of many surface bacteria and are also varied in their structure, all have a hydrophilic head and long hydrophobic carbon chain. These long hydrophobic carbon chains can pierce through the lipid bilayers that make up bacteria cell membranes and cause cytoplasmic leakage and lysis of the cell wall, leading to cell death. One proposed surfactant is synthesized by taking N-benzylamino ethanol dissolved in absolute ethanol and adding 1-bromododecane in excess then left to reflux. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles, or MSNs, are versatile drug delivery vessels that can uptake a variety of drugs in simple one pot synthesis. The desired drug is dissolved in a typically basic solvent at critical micelle concentration, then Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) is added and the reaction is allowed to reflux until a precipitate is formed. The MSN can then be further functionalized with a gatekeeper to help target bacteria and force the loaded drug inside the MSN to be released when desired. In this case a peptide chain with Vancomycin attached to the end will be used to functionalize the MSNs. Both the synthesized surfactants and the loaded MSNs are tested against the model pathogen Micrococcus luteus to test for their effectiveness in killing bacteria. In future work MSNs loaded with various surfactants will be synthesized and possible use of different bulky gatekeepers to functionalize the outside of MSNs will be considered.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Barrett, Sonia (2019). "Peptide Functionalized Surfactant MSNs," Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference. https://newprairiepress.org/ksuugradresearch/2019/posters/65
Included in
Amino Acids, Peptides, and Proteins Commons, Inorganic Chemicals Commons, Nanomedicine Commons, Organic Chemicals Commons, Other Chemicals and Drugs Commons
Peptide Functionalized Surfactant MSNs
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria has become a rising problem since the first antibiotic was created, further aggravated by the improper overuse to treat common infections, because of this pharmaceutical companies must keep making new and stronger antibiotics. Surfactants are plentiful and effective killers of many surface bacteria and are also varied in their structure, all have a hydrophilic head and long hydrophobic carbon chain. These long hydrophobic carbon chains can pierce through the lipid bilayers that make up bacteria cell membranes and cause cytoplasmic leakage and lysis of the cell wall, leading to cell death. One proposed surfactant is synthesized by taking N-benzylamino ethanol dissolved in absolute ethanol and adding 1-bromododecane in excess then left to reflux. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles, or MSNs, are versatile drug delivery vessels that can uptake a variety of drugs in simple one pot synthesis. The desired drug is dissolved in a typically basic solvent at critical micelle concentration, then Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) is added and the reaction is allowed to reflux until a precipitate is formed. The MSN can then be further functionalized with a gatekeeper to help target bacteria and force the loaded drug inside the MSN to be released when desired. In this case a peptide chain with Vancomycin attached to the end will be used to functionalize the MSNs. Both the synthesized surfactants and the loaded MSNs are tested against the model pathogen Micrococcus luteus to test for their effectiveness in killing bacteria. In future work MSNs loaded with various surfactants will be synthesized and possible use of different bulky gatekeepers to functionalize the outside of MSNs will be considered.
