What is it about?

This is the review paper by us, published 2011. The Japan Institute of Light Metals invited us to write it. Some researchers on metallic materials and bacteriology collaborated to investigate the growth of bacteria on metallic materials. In this review paper, we showed what kinds of metal elements could control the growth. The results for Co, Cu, Mn, Ni, Ag, Zn, Cr, Fe, Al, Mg and Ti. The bacteria which we used for the investigation were Pseudomonas aeruginosa, E-coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

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Why is it important?

The antibacterial effect of metals should be one of the important keys to make clean surfaces free from biofilms etc. From the viewpoint, the experimental results which this paper showed are the fundamental ones. E-coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Klebstella pneumoniae are the good choices for the purpose.

Perspectives

This paper was actually the starting point for our biofilm research. Antibacterial effect of metals generally appear after the dissolution of metals into ions. Therefore, the tendency of hydration must be involved into the effect closely. And the binding tendency of metallic ions with proteins on bacterial surfaces are also closely related to the appearance of antibacterial effects, since the binding would decrease works of proteins as a result.

Professor Hideyuki Kanematsu
National Institute of Technology, Suzuka College

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: , Journal of Japan Institute of Light Metals, January 2011, Japan Institute of Light Metals,
DOI: 10.2464/jilm.61.160.
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