Type I Photosensitizer Targeting Glycans: Overcoming Biofilm Resistance by Inhibiting the Two-Component System, Quorum Sensing, and Multidrug Efflux.

Stubborn biofilm infections pose serious threats to human health due to the persistence, recurrence, and dramatically magnified antibiotic resistance. Photodynamic therapy has emerged as a promising approach to combat biofilm. Nevertheless, how to inhibit the bacterial signal transduction system and the efflux pump to conquer biofilm recurrence and resistance remains a challenging and unaddressed issue.

Molecular Charge and Antibacterial Performance Relationships of Aggregation-Induced Emission Photosensitizers.

Bacterial infections remain a major cause of morbidity worldwide due to drug resistance of pathogenic bacteria. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has emerged as a promising approach to overcome this drug resistance. However, existing photosensitizers (PSs) are broad-spectrum antibacterial agents that dysregulate the microflora balance resulting in undesirable side effects.

A novel furo[3,2-]pyridine-based AIE photosensitizer for specific imaging and photodynamic ablation of Gram-positive bacteria.

An Rh-catalyzed tandem reaction was performed to construct an AIE-active furo[2,3-]pyridine-based photosensitizer, named LIQ-TF. LIQ-TF showed near-infrared emission with high quantum yield, and high O and ˙OH generation efficiency, and could be used for specific imaging and photodynamic ablation of Gram-positive bacteria and , showing great potential for combating multiple drug-resistant bacteria.