Investigation of antimicrobial photodynamic inactivation effect of porphyrins adsorbed onto rutile TiO ₂ nanofibers

Antimicrobial photodynamic inactivation (aPDI) is a therapeutic method that can be used to inactivate bacteria while reducing the possibility of antimicrobial resistance. In this work asymmetric and symmetric porphyrins were adsorbed onto rutile titanium dioxide nanofibers and their aPDI activity compared with the porphyrins alone. The porphyrins exhibited high singlet oxygen quantum yields and low fluorescence. aPDI studies indicate that the porphyrins alone investigated in this work are not very efficient in inactivating microorganisms as compared to the metalloporphyrin-adsorbed rutile nanofibers, which exhibited good antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus where up to 100% of cells were inactivated. It was observed that the porphyrins and nanofibers have a synergetic effect that increases efficacy in the eradication of microorganisms.