Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (2000) 46, 751-756
© 2000 The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
Efficacy of polycationic peptides in preventing vascular graft infection due to Staphylococcus epidermidis
a Institute of Infectious Diseases and Public Health and b Department of General Surgery, INRCA IRCCS, University of Ancona, Ancona, Italy
A rat model was used to investigate the efficacy of two polycationic peptides, ranalexin and buforin II, in the prevention of vascular prosthetic graft infection due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis with intermediate resistance to glycopeptides. The in vitro activity of the peptides was compared with those of vancomycin and teicoplanin by MIC determination and time–kill study. Moreover, the efficacy of collagen-sealed peptide-soaked Dacron was evaluated in a rat model of graft infection. Graft infections were established in the dorsal subcutaneous tissue of 120 adult male Wistar rats. The in vivo study included a control group, one contaminated group that did not receive any antibiotic prophylaxis and four contaminated groups that received an antibiotic-soaked graft. Experiments demonstrated that the activities of buforin II and ranalexin were greater than those of vancomycin and teicoplanin. Particularly, rats with buforin II-coated Dacron grafts showed no evidence of staphylococcal infection while, for the rats with ranalexin-, vancomycin- and teicoplanin-coated Dacron grafts, the quantitative graft cultures demonstrated bacterial growth (1.9 x 102 ± 0.6 x 102 cfu/mL, 6.2 x 103 ± 1.9 x 103 cfu/mL and 5.1 x 104 ± 4.8 x 103 cfu/mL, respectively). The study demonstrated that the use of peptide-soaked Dacron graft can result in significant bacterial growth inhibition and indicates that these compounds may be potentially useful in prosthetic surgery.
* Corresponding address. Clinica delle Malattie Infettive, c/o Azienda Ospedaliera Umberto I, Piazza Cappelli 1, 60121 Ancona, Italy. Tel: +39-071-5963467; Fax: +39-071-5963468; E-mail: cmalinf{at}popcsi.unian.it
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