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The Effect of Air Plasma Activated Liquid on Uropathogenic Bacteria

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Abstract

Urinary tract infections (UTI) are often caused by resistant uropathogenic bacteria and can lead to sepsis or chronic renal failure. Cold plasma activated liquid (PAL) has known antimicrobial properties with applications in wound disinfection. The aim of our study is to evaluate PAL as a potential treatment of UTI in an animal model. Based on in vitro tests using a uropathogenic E. coli strain, PAL generated in the atmospheric air Glow Discharge plasma had the strongest antimicrobial effect in comparison to other types of PAL and was further tested in vivo. Transurethral PAL application had no effect on bacterial load in the 24 h mouse model of UTI. Upon investigating the treatment failure, we found that urine completely prevented any antimicrobial effects of PAL and PAL treatment of neutrophils resulted in their reduced viability and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential. These results do not support the hypothesis that the in vitro antimicrobial effects of PAL can be translated to the in vivo model of UTI. This could be explained by the attenuating effect of urine on the antimicrobial activity of PAL and its toxicity on immune cells. The detailed mechanism of the effects of urine on PAL requires further investigation.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was supported by the grants funded by the Slovak Research and Development Agency (Grant Number APVV-18-0287 and APVV-17-0382) and by the Grant Agency of Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic VEGA 1/0234/18.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Molecular Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava, Sasinkova 4, 811 08, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Michal Pastorek, Mária Suchoňová, Barbora Konečná, Jakub Petrus, Nadja Ivašková, Peter Celec, Roman Gardlík & Ľubomíra Tóthová

  2. Division of Environmental Physics, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Slavomír Pásztor & Zdenko Machala

  3. Institute of Pathophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Peter Celec

  4. Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Peter Celec

Authors
  1. Michal Pastorek
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  2. Mária Suchoňová
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  3. Barbora Konečná
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  4. Slavomír Pásztor
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  5. Jakub Petrus
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  6. Nadja Ivašková
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  7. Peter Celec
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  8. Roman Gardlík
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  9. Zdenko Machala
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  10. Ľubomíra Tóthová
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Peter Celec, Zdenko Machala; Methodology: Michal Pastorek, Slavomír Pásztor, Nadja Ivašková, Jakub Petrus; Formal analysis and investigation: Barbora Konečná, Mária Suchoňová, Ľubomíra Tóthová; Writing—original draft preparation: Michal Pastorek, Ľubomíra Tóthová; Writing—review and editing: Roman Gardlík; Funding acquisition: Zdenko Machala, Ľubomíra Tóthová; Resources: Zdenko Machala; Supervision: Peter Celec.

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Correspondence to Ľubomíra Tóthová.

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Pastorek, M., Suchoňová, M., Konečná, B. et al. The Effect of Air Plasma Activated Liquid on Uropathogenic Bacteria. Plasma Chem Plasma Process 42, 561–574 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11090-022-10239-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11090-022-10239-1

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