An effective approach to combat bacteria adhesion onto metallic implants surface is to
functionalize the biomaterial surface such that bacterial growth could be impaired or the bacteria are killed
upon contact with the surfaces. In the recent years, a majority of the research in material science has been
devoted to modification or functionalization of implant surfaces with composite coatings with bactericidal
capability such as polymeric coatings. For instance, chitosan (CH) is a polycationic polysaccharide which
antibacterial properties and osteoblast function-enhancing nature has received substantial interest. The main
goal of our study was to evaluate the effect of different chitosan-coated metals, routinely used in orthopaedics,
on the survival of Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus aureus. The results clearly showed that
survival of attached bacteria onto metals functionalized with chitosan was lower when compared to bacterial
survival determined on the surface of unmodified metals. Moreover, chitosan coating caused bacterial cells to
lose their regular spherical shape. Thus, the results proved that chitosan could be used as alternative material
for the preparation of antimicrobial coatings for implants.
