RESEARCH ARTICLE
Antibacterial Efficacy Testing of a Bioelectric Wound Dressing Against Clinical Wound Pathogens
Hosan Kim 1, Inder Makin 3, Jeff Skiba 3, Amy Ho 3, Greggory Housler 4, Alexander Stojadinovic 2, 5, Mina Izadjoo 1, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2014Volume: 8
First Page: 15
Last Page: 21
Publisher ID: TOMICROJ-8-15
DOI: 10.2174/1874285801408010015
Article History:
Received Date: 17/12/2013Revision Received Date: 17/1/2014
Acceptance Date: 3/2/2014
Electronic publication date: 21/2/2014
Collection year: 2014

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Silver-based wound dressings have been developed for the control of bioburden in wounds. However, the popularity and extensive use of silver-based dressings has been associated with emerging microbial resistances to silver. In this study we examined in vitro antibacterial efficacy of a bioelectric dressing containing silver and zinc against various wound pathogens. Antibiotic-sensitive clinical wound isolates showed a 100% reduction in bacterial growth, except that Enterococcus faecalis isolate was shown to survive with a bacterial log10 reduction rate of less than 102 CFU. We also investigated antibacterial efficacy against the extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) bacteria, multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The bioelectric dressing was effective in killing wound pathogens including ESBL, MDR, and MRSA in vitro. Furthermore, based on the primary results against E. faecalis, we carried out extensive studies against several nosocomial Enterococcus species including vancomycin-resistant species. Overall, the vancomycin-sensitive or -resistant Enterococcus species were resistant to this dressing at up to 48 h, except for the vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus raffinosus isolate only showing a 100% bacterial reduction at 48 h, but not at 24 h. The results demonstrated the effective bactericidal activity of a bioelectric dressing against antibiotic-sensitive and MDR strains, but Enterococcus species are bacteriostatic.