AUTHOR=Ayalew Hailemichael , Ali Syed Atif , She Jia-Wei , Yu Hsiao-hua 

TITLE=Biguanide- and Oligo(Ethylene Glycol)-Functionalized Poly(3,4-Ethylenedioxythiophene): Electroactive, Antimicrobial, and Antifouling Surface Coatings

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2022.955260

DOI=10.3389/fchem.2022.955260

ISSN=2296-2646

ABSTRACT=The challenge from infectious disease remains a critical concern to the global public health. Recently, it is common to encounter touch-screen electronic devices everywhere to access services. The surface of such devices may easily get contaminated by infected person that leads to transmission of infectious disease between individuals. Moreover, the challenge is complicated by surgical infections from implantable biomedical devices. Such problems can be minimized by the use of long-term active antimicrobial surface coatings. We present herein the preparation of novel electroactive antimicrobial surface coatings through the covalent attachment of biguanide moiety onto 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT). The biguanide-functionalized-EDOT (EDOT-BG) was thus electropolymerized on different substrates to give the corresponding poly(EDOT-BG) polymer. The poly(EDOT-BG) polymer showed excellent bactericidal efficiency (~92% bacterial death) and excellent biocompatibility to mammalian cells (~99% cell viability). Furthermore, the antimicrobial EDOT-BG was electro-copolymerized with antifouling tetra ethylene glycol functionalized-EDOT (EDOT-EG4) to give a multifunctional poly(EDOT-EG4-co-EDOT-BG) copolymer. The copolymer showed excellent resistance to protein adsorption and mammalian/bacterial cell binding without losing its bactericidal efficiency. These novel materials can be applied on domestic and bioelectronic devices to minimize infectious diseases.