Internalization of the PDZ and its photodynamic effect on the growth of ATCC and clinical strains of E. coli and S. aureus

The treatment of bacterial infections has been a challenge after the end of the 'era of antibiotics'. Bacteria are capable of causing many infectious diseases; therefore, with the increasing number of bacteria becoming resistant, development of alternative therapies is needed to minimize, or even eliminate the use of antibiotics. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising alternative to fight microorganism. In view of the increasing emergence of resistant bacteria and the limitations of conventional treatment, this study evaluated the effect of photodynamic therapy with photodithazine (PDZ) in inactivating bacterial strains of E. coli and S. aureus in vitro, comparing the behavior of clinical and ATCC strains. Confocal microscopy analysis was performed to determine the internalization of the PS and spectrophotometric technique was used to determine the growth of bacteria in vitro. PDT using PDZ was able to reduce the growth of S. aureus strains using the incubation time of 24 h, whereas no satisfactory results were obtained with 15 min incubation. The E. coli strains, tested at two incubation times, did not affectively reduce bacterial growth. Therefore, it is concluded that PDT using PDZ is viable when applied to the S. aureus strains, when suitable incubation times are used.