Small meets smaller: Research seminar with Prof Roland Stauber

Small meets smaller: Nanomaterial-microbe crosstalk–physicochemical principles and patho biological consequences.

Pathogenic micro-organisms can cause severe diseases. Scientific and medical interest in the human microbiome, defined as the sum of all microbial organisms residing inside the body, has increased significantly. Notably, the infection paths of pathogenic micro-organisms overlap with major entry routes for nanoparticles (NPs) occurring during environmental exposure, or deliberate medical applications. For example, in addition to NPs, the air we breathe is filled with a significant number of fungal spores that originate from a variety of fungal species.

Therefore it is surprising that the interaction of NPs with (pathogenic) micro-organisms and patho-biological consequences have not been investigated in detail.

We studied various model NPs widely varying in size, material, shape and surface functionalization because the physicochemical characteristics of NPs (co)define their behaviours and patho-biological activity in physiological systems. The interaction of NPs with different micro-organisms as well as the impact of NPs on microorganism-host cell responses was investigated via analytical approaches.

We report how different micro-organisms interact with NPs and discuss the underlying physicochemical principles of the impact of the biomolecule corona, and demonstrate how these interactions can impact the patho-biological outcome and fate of exposure of the human host to both NPs and micro-organisms.

We expect that the identified mechanism(s) will be of biomedical and toxicological relevance.