Cu‐Intercalated MoS2 Nanosheets with Enhanced Antibacterial Activity for Treatment of Bacterial Keratitis

Bacterial keratitis (BK) is a critical and sight-threatening corneal infection that significantly impairs the quality of life. Due to the widespread antibiotic-resistant microbes and the slow development in antibiotics, there is an increasingly growing demand to create new antimicrobial agents for the treatment of BK. Herein, copper-intercalated molybdenum disulfide (Cu-MoS2) nanosheets are constructed by intercalating Cu into the interlayer structure of MoS2 via intercalation chemistry, which not only introduces the Fenton reaction but also modulates the electronic structure of MoS2. Cu-MoS2 can convert H2O2 into more toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS), thereby exhibiting excellent bactericidal performance against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) at room temperature in the dark. Animal experiments indicated that Cu-MoS2 can effectively treat BK caused by MRSA. This work demonstrates that intercalation chemistry as a novel and effective strategy to tune MoS2 as the antibacterial agent with no reliance on light that has great potential therapeutic effects on clinical drug-resistant BK.