Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jul 25:13:888266.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.888266. eCollection 2022.

Microwaves, a potential treatment for bacteria: A review

Zhen Zhang  1   2 , Jiahao Wang  1   2 , Yihe Hu  2   3 , Long Wang  1   2   4   5
Affiliations
Review

Microwaves, a potential treatment for bacteria: A review

Zhen Zhang et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Bacteria have brought great harm to the public, especially after the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria. This has rendered traditional antibiotic therapy ineffective. In recent years, hyperthermia has offered new treatments to remove bacteria. Microwaves (MW) are a component of the electromagnetic spectrum and can rapidly heat materials. Taking advantage of this characteristic of MW, related studies have shown that both thermal and non-thermal effects of MW can inactivate various bacteria. Even though the understanding of MW in the field of bacteria is not sufficient for widespread use at present, MW has performed well in dealing with microorganisms and controlling infection. This review will focus on the application of MW in bacteria and discuss the advantages, prospects and challenges of using MW in the bacterial field.

Keywords: application; bacteria; biosensor; mechanism; microwave.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
SEM images of E. coli (A) before MW irradiation and (B) after MW irradiation (Wang et al., 2019b).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
(A) Survival of C. difficile spores following microwave irradiation and conductive heating. (B) Survival of C. difficile spores following conductive heating. (C) Transmission electron micrographs of C. difficile spores following microwave irradiation and conductive heating (Ojha et al., 2016).
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
CLSM images (×40) of B. cereus spores in biofilms. (A,B) Before MW and (C,D) after microwave irradiation. Green fluorescence: living cells and dead cells; red fluorescence: dead cells (Park et al., 2017).
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Multiplex detection of E. coli and P. aeruginosa by NAME (Gao et al., 2019).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Alav I., Sutton J. M., Rahman K. M. (2018). Role of bacterial efflux pumps in biofilm formation. J Antimicrob Chemother 73 2003–2020. 10.1093/jac/dky042 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Andersson A., Ronner U., Granum P. E. (1995). What problems does the food industry have with the spore-forming pathogens Bacillus cereus and Clostridium perfringens? Int J Food Microbiol 28 145–155. 10.1016/0168-1605(95)00053-4 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ash C., Dubec M., Donne K., Bashford T. (2017). Effect of wavelength and beam width on penetration in light-tissue interaction using computational methods. Lasers Med Sci 32 1909–1918. 10.1007/s10103-017-2317-4 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Boyle E. C., Bishop J. L., Grassl G. A., Finlay B. B. (2007). Salmonella: from pathogenesis to therapeutics. J Bacteriol 189 1489–1495. 10.1128/JB.01730-06 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cao J. X., Wang F., Li X., Sun Y. Y., Wang Y., Ou C. R., et al. (2018). The Influence of Microwave Sterilization on the Ultrastructure, Permeability of Cell Membrane and Expression of Proteins of Bacillus Cereus. Front Microbiol 9:1870. 10.3389/fmicb.2018.01870 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources