Potentiating antibiotics in drug-resistant clinical isolates via stimuli-activated superoxide generation

In their Article “Potentiating antibiotics in drug-resistant clinical isolates via stimuli-activated superoxide generation” (Science Advances, 04 October, 2017, Vol. 3, no. 10, e1701776), Nagpal et al. highlight the combinatorial utility of engineered stimuli-responsive nanoparticles potentiate antibiotics activity of Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica, and Klebsiella pneumonia. Antibiotic abuse has produced a great threat to the environment (1). A new kind of pollution is quietly emerging; which may evolve into a severe environmental problem with the occurrence and development of nanotechnology (2). We have paid too little attention to this new nano-pollution and nano-pollutants (such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, QDs, metal and metal oxide nanoparticles), for the reason that our whole concerns are located on the traditional pollutants. Importantly, nano-pollutants perform their damage more than individually and even potentiate the threat of existed pollutants. Following the development and use of nanotechnology, nano-pollution certainly will develop into one of the most serious environmental problems that we need to deal with:

The first consideration is the distribution of these new pollutants around the world; this step is the foundation of its control. However, we need to build a systematic and rapid analysis method to detect the quantity of nano-pollutants before the investigation of distribution can be performed. As we all know, nano-pollutants is different to the traditional metal or organic pollutants which can be measured by simple instruments; detection of nano-pollutants is a complicated work for its unusual structure and properties. For example, metal nanoparticles must be separated from its ions form before to quantify it using the core-element (3). Quantify of QDs via optic properties should consider the size and morphology of the particle. An important point is that nano-pollutants are easily transformed in the process of sampling and detecting (4). Hence, the sampling methods must be designed uniquely and the statistics should consider environmental condition sufficiently.

The second consideration is management and controlling of nano-pollution. Nano-pollutants exhibit unique environmental toxicity and behavior, which is a challenge to the existing management strategy and controlling technology. Some nano-pollutants are stable enough in the environment to perform damage (5). Even the existing treatment technology is hard to remove nano-pollutants from water systems (6). To protect our environment from nano-pollution, novel and suitable technology must be exploited to repair the river, soil and even atmosphere. Our management strategy and controlling technology must be evolutionary to meet the need of environmental protection in resistance to these nano-pollutants.

REFERENCES
1. Q. Q. Zhang, et al., Environ. Sci. Technol. 49, 6772 (2015).
2. E. Valsami-Jones, I. Lynch, Science 350, 388 (2015).
3. S. j. Yu, et al., Environ. Sci. Technol. 47, 3268 (2013).
4. M. S. Lavine, Science 356, 280 (2017).
5. H. Zhang, et al., Nature 542, 328 (2017).
6. Z. Guo, et al., Environ. Sci. Nano 3, 1027 (2016).