The Effect of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles in Antibacterial Photothermal Therapy against MRSA

The discovery of the antibiotics is considered as a major development for the medical world from past to present. However, today due to the unnecessary and wrong use of antibiotics, most pathogenic bacteria have gained resistance to them. Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), one of the most common types of drug resistant bacteria, causes serious diseases such as hospital infections, and it is difficult to treat the disease with its resistance mechanism. Therefore, new searches for treatment have emerged to prevent infections caused by drug resistant bacteria. One of these new alternative treatments is antibacterial photothermal therapy, which will be supported by the use of nanoparticles in photothermal therapy. In this study, photothermal therapy was performed using zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles which are known to have an antibacterial effect. ZnO concentrations for the applications performed were 100 ×g/ml and 250 ×g/ml. Light applications were carried out with a diode laser with 808-nm of wavelength using various output powers (1, 2, and 2.3 W) and energy densities (42.3, 100, 250, and 600 J/cm2) in the presence of both determined concentrations. The most effective result was more than 99.99% bacterial cell death when the concentration of 250 ×g/ml ZnO was applied with 2.3 W output power and 600 J/cm2 energy density. As a result of this study, it is thought that photothermal therapy in the presence of ZnO nanoparticles has great promise in the treatment of infections caused by antibiotic resistant strains when appropriate parameters are provided.