Study of bacterial attachment on the rough surfaces

Bacterial attachment is a menace in medical implants that inevitably demands revision surgery, increasing the patient morbidity and cost involved. Numerous strategies such as use of antibodies, combination of antibiotics, contact killing surfaces, coatings with functional DNase I, glycoside hydrolase, surface derivatization and functionalization are practiced to combat biomaterial associated infections. Generally, coatings with bioactive compounds have limited shelf-life and require cold-chain. In this study, surface architectures were generated on the glass coverslip by rasping with different grits of silicon carbide paper, and were characterized using Atomic Force Microscope. Common human pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus epidermidis were tested for their attachment on the coverslips. The results indicate that the nano-scale surface architecture developed by rasping the coverslip with p1000 grit reduced bacterial attachment by 50-80% compared to control . Ironically, surface architecture developed by rasping the coverslip with p80 grit increased the bacterial attachment under both static and dynamic conditions to about 30-40% compared to control. The study suggests that knowledge on bacterial attachment on different surface architectures would facilitate fabrication of medical implants with defined surface structures that restricts bacterial colonization.