Highly Virulent Bactericidal Effects of Curcumin-Based μ-Cages Fabricated by Two-Photon Polymerization

Abstract

A new antibacterial strategy is reported based on two-photon fabrication of three-dimensional curcumin-embedded μ-cages. Such devices were designed to entrap and kill <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i> bacteria upon visible light irradiation. The proposed concept mainly relies on the pivotal role of curcumin, which is sequentially used as a two-photon active free radical initiator and as a photogenerator of reactive oxygen species within the cage μ-volumes. We show that these μ-cages exhibit extremely high antimicrobial properties, leading to 95% bacteria mortality after only 10 min visible irradiation. A preconcentration mechanism of photogenerated oxygen species is proposed to account for this highly performing bactericidal effect whose virulence can be strikingly switched on by increasing the light exposure time from 5 to 10 min.