Identification and mitigation of blood’s interference with the antimicrobial activity of AgNbO ₃ particles

The detrimental impact of blood on the antimicrobial activity of AgNbO ₃ particles was identified and investigated. It was observed that the impact is more severe in the case of lysed blood and also operates in the case of commonly used silver salt, AgNO ₃ . The inhibition was shown to be due to hemoglobin, but unrelated to the heme moiety. In an attempt to find additives to mitigate the inhibitory effect of hemoglobin, iron ions and the chelating agent, K ₂ EDTA, were selected as promising candidates. Including iron on the particles was shown to have a marginal effect, but supplying the medium with K ₂ EDTA, an agent preventing clotting of blood samples, fully countered the deleterious impact of hemoglobin on AgNbO ₃ activity. These findings may be relevant for adapting the silver compounds to applications such as wound dressings, where silver’s antimicrobial action would have to take place in a medium containing blood.