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Bacterial infection has continued to be a leading cause of death or disability worldwide because of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic agents specific to certain taxa of bacteria, i.e., narrow-spectrum antibiotics, have become useful because they can kill bacteria without resulting in broad-spectrum drug resistance. In this study, we describe a series of antibiotics based on combining gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with aminosaccharides, even though these AuNPs or aminosaccharides by themselves are ineffective against any bacteria. The AuNP-based multivalent aminosaccharides can effectively and selectively inhibit the growth of Gram-positive bacteria (including drug-resistant superbacteria). In particular, aminosaccharide-modified AuNPs are effective against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a particularly hard-to-treat strain. This report carves out a way to explore antibiotics by combining AuNPs and an aminosaccharide as multivalent nanostructures, neither of which by itself is effective as an antibiotic.
We thank the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2013YQ190467), Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA09030305), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81361140345, 51373043, and 21535001) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR201709250460) for financial support.