The development of new disinfection strategies has become increasingly important over the past decades. One substance that is already used as a potent antimicrobial is pyrithione (2-mercaptopyridine N-oxide), a derivate of naturally occurring aspergillic acid. Even though pyrithione has already proved successful as an antimicrobial, it has some major disadvantages. These include ineffectiveness against viruses and bacteriostatic activity as opposed to bactericidal. A promising approach to address these disadvantages is to incorporate pyrithione into ionic liquids (ILs), to strengthen or physically modify its effects that could portend new applications. This study therefore investigated the antimicrobial properties of pyrithione-based ILs by applying a tripartite test system, including enzyme inhibition tests, virucidal activity determination against three model viruses and activity against eleven clinically relevant bacteria and two yeasts. Results confirm that pyrithione remains an effective antimicrobial even in IL form. A typical “sidechain effect” was demonstrated at the enzymatic level and it was possible to prepare ILs with antiviral properties against all three model viruses. Furthermore, at the bacterial level, this study revealed additional characteristics after incorporating pyrithione into an IL: improved diffusion of pyrithione through agar, a bactericidal effect, especially against gram-negative bacteria and a high susceptibility against clinically relevant yeast Candida tropicalis. These observations demonstrate benefits of pyrithione-IL combinations. Efficacy of pyrithione-based ILs against viruses, bacteria and yeast is particularly worthy of future investigation.

在过去的几十年中，开发新的消毒策略变得越来越重要。巯基吡啶氧化物（2-巯基吡啶N-氧化物），一种天然存在的曲霉酸的衍生物。尽管巯氧吡啶已被证明是成功的抗微生物剂，它也有一些主要的缺点。这些包括与杀菌相反的针对病毒的无效性和抑菌活性。解决这些缺点的一种有前途的方法是将巯基吡啶氧化物掺入离子液体（IL）中，以增强或物理改变其效果，这可能预示着新的应用。因此，本研究通过应用三方测试系统（包括酶抑制测试，对三种模型病毒的杀病毒活性测定以及对11种临床相关细菌和两种酵母的活性）研究了基于巯氧吡啶的ILs的抗菌特性。结果证实，巯氧吡啶即使在IL形式下也仍然是有效的抗菌剂。在酶促水平上证实了典型的“侧链效应”，并且有可能制备具有针对所有三种模型病毒的抗病毒特性的IL。此外，在细菌水平上，这项研究揭示了将巯氧吡啶加入到IL中后的其他特征：巯氧吡啶通过琼脂的扩散得到改善，具有杀菌作用，尤其是对革兰氏阴性菌，对临床相关酵母菌的敏感性高热带假丝酵母。这些观察证明了巯氧吡啶-IL组合的益处。基于巯氧吡啶的ILs对病毒，细菌和酵母的功效特别值得未来研究。