| Abstract Scope |
The escalating threat of bacterial infections, especially antibiotic-resistant strains, highlights the need for efficient, long-term, broad-spectrum, and non-antibiotic disinfectants.Inspired by sea urchin morphology, we developed a biomimetic nano-disinfectant: Au@ZnO nano-urchins (Au@ZnO-NUs). Each consists of a gold nanocore(25 ± 5 nm in diameter) surrounded by ZnO nanospears (length: 50 ± 5 nm, diameter: 14 ± 6 nm), demonstrating broad-spectrum antibacterial activity. At low concentrations (<8 µg/mL), it achieves >99.47% efficacy against 7 bacteria including MRSA, lasting over 30 days.The underlying bacteriostatic mechanism involves multiple pathways, including physical penetration of bacterial walls, ROS over-production, membrane-potential dissipation, ATP-level downregulation, and biofilm deformation obtained from both experiment and transcriptomic-analysis. Moreover, these nano-urchins can be easily applied as a spray-coating on any surface, creating a wash-resist, cicada-wing-like nano-spiky array antibacterial layer. This study offers a promising candidate for daily antibacterial applications and advances the biomimetic design of non-antibiotic antibacterial strategies. |