Investigating the biological and mechanical performance of cranberry-modified silicone materials for use in implantable medical devices
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are the second most common type of hospital acquired infection in North America with over a million cases reported each year. This high incidence rate, together with the dissemination of antibiotic resistant uropathogens has resulted in much interest in the development of preventative measures within the research community. The consumption of Vaccinium macrocarpon, the North American cranberry, has been linked with the prevention of bacterial infections in the urinary tract for over 100 years. The McGill Biocolloids and Surfaces Laboratory has shown that cranberry derived materials (CDMs) can inhibit bacterial adherence to surfaces, impair bacterial motility, and influence various bacterial virulence functions. It is therefore hypothesized that cranberries and CDMs could prevent the development of CAUTIs via the disruption of various stages of pathogenesis. Herein, we report on the bioperformance of cranberry impregnated biomedical grade silicone against the biofilms formed by Proteus mirabilis, a clinically relevant uropathogen. In addition, the mechanical performance of this cranberry-silicone hybrid material is studied. First, the release of bioactive cranberry materials into an aqueous environment is demonstrated in lysogeny broth using a spectrophotometric method. Second, the ultimate tensile strength, elongation at break, storage modulus, and contact angle of CDM impregnated silicone are reported. Finally, the ability of P. mirabilis to form biofilms on the cranberry-modified silicone surface is qualitatively studied over the course of 96 hours via confocal laser scanning microscopy and quantitatively studied using COMSTAT 2 image analysis and multiple analytical techniques. CDM-modified silicone demonstrated sustained release of approximately 30% of its cranberry content into a lysogeny broth environment over the course of 96 hours. A positive correlation between cranberry concentration and storage modulus was observed, whereas ultimate tensile strength and elongation at break decreased with increasing concentrations of cranberry. Moreover, no change in the surface hydrophobicity of the CDM-modified silicone was detected via contact angle goniometry. The presence of cranberry in the silicon substrate was found to result in flattening of P. mirabilis biofilms, leading to significant increases in surface coverage and surface exposed to nutrients. Biovolume as determined by COMSTAT 2 and number of attached bacteria as determined by hemocytometry presented no difference between cranberry-modified silicone and control, whereas P. mirabilis viability was found to be higher on cranberry-modified silicone.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".