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. 2021 Jun 22;10(7):751.
doi: 10.3390/antibiotics10070751.

Rhamnolipids Nano-Micelles as a Potential Hand Sanitizer

Marwa Reda Bakkar  1 , Ahmed Hassan Ibrahim Faraag  1   2 , Elham R S Soliman  3 , Manar S Fouda  4 , Amir Mahfouz Mokhtar Sarguos  5 , Gary R McLean  6   7 , Ali M S Hebishy  8 , Gehad E Elkhouly  9   10 , Nermeen R Raya  9   10 , Yasmin Abo-Zeid  9   10
Affiliations

Rhamnolipids Nano-Micelles as a Potential Hand Sanitizer

Marwa Reda Bakkar et al. Antibiotics (Basel). .

Abstract

COVID-19 is a pandemic disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2, which continues to cause global health and economic problems since emerging in China in late 2019. Until now, there are no standard antiviral treatments. Thus, several strategies were adopted to minimize virus transmission, such as social distancing, face covering protection and hand hygiene. Rhamnolipids are glycolipids produced formally by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and as biosurfactants, they were shown to have broad antimicrobial activity. In this study, we investigated the antimicrobial activity of rhamnolipids against selected multidrug resistant bacteria and SARS-CoV-2. Rhamnolipids were produced by growing Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain LeS3 in a new medium formulated from chicken carcass soup. The isolated rhamnolipids were characterized for their molecular composition, formulated into nano-micelles, and the antibacterial activity of the nano-micelles was demonstrated in vitro against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive drug resistant bacteria. In silico studies docking rhamnolipids to structural and non-structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 was also performed. We demonstrated the efficient and specific interaction of rhamnolipids with the active sites of these proteins. Additionally, the computational studies suggested that rhamnolipids have membrane permeability activity. Thus, the obtained results indicate that SARS-CoV-2 could be another target of rhamnolipids and could find utility in the fight against COVID-19, a future perspective to be considered.

Keywords: COVID-19; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; SARS-CoV-2; antibacterial agent; antiviral agent; docking studies; nano-micelles; rhamnolipids.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Chemical structure of (A) rhamnolipids R1 (mono-rhamnolipids; Rha(s)1) and (B) rhamnolipids R2 (di-rhamnolipids; Rha(s)2). Chemical structures were retrieved from PubChem; https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (accessed on 16 June 2021).
Figure 2
Figure 2
TEM image of rhamnolipids nano-micelles prepared at a concentration of 5 mg mL−1.
Figure 3
Figure 3
In silico docking study revealing the interactions between (A) Rha(s)1 and (B) Rha(s)2 with spike glycoproteins (S1-N-terminal domain (NTD) and S2 part) of SARS-CoV-2. PDB accession number for spike glycoproteins is 7CWU.
Figure 4
Figure 4
In silico docking study revealing interactions between (A) Rha(s)1 and (B) Rha(s)2 with the active sites of SARS-CoV-2 EndoRNAse. PDB accession number for EndoRNAse is 6X1B.
Figure 5
Figure 5
In silico docking study revealing interactions between (A) Rha(s)1 and (B) Rha(s)2 with the active sites of SARS-CoV-2 Helicase. PDB accession number for helicase is 5RL6.
Figure 6
Figure 6
In silico docking study revealing interactions between (A) Rha(s)1 and (B) Rha(s)2 with the active sites of SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. PDB accession number for RNA-dependent RNA polymerase is 7CYQ.
Figure 7
Figure 7
In silico docking study revealing interactions between (A) Rha(s)1 and (B) Rha(s)2 with the active sites of SARS-CoV2 main protease. PDB accession number for main protease is 6Y2G.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Sketch presenting the damage effect caused by rhamnolipids on the lipid bilayer of virus envelope and spike glycoproteins.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Sketch presenting the inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 by biosurfactants as a single molecules and nano-micelles.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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