Photodynamic antimicrobial activity of polydiacetylene crystal nanostructure against E. coli

Antimicrobial resistance may be reduced using a novel approach, i.e. microenvironment-targeted administration of antibiotics. This study shows excellent photodynamic antimicrobial activity of the polydiacetylene crystal nanostructure. The polydiacetylene nanocrystal (NC-DCHD) only binds to the cell membrane of E. coli in dark incubation with minimal damage to bacterial cells. Still, the same reaction mixture placed in photodynamic light highly damaged the bacterial cells was observed due to high photocatalytic activity. The NC-DCHD bacterial minimum inhibition concentration was observed at 0.8 mu M after 5 h incubation in the photoregion.