Antibacterial applications of selenium nanorods

Abstract

Over the past decades, selenium nanoparticles have been applied broadly to medicine due to their great antibacterial and anticancer effects. Since selenium is a natural component in our diet, found commonly in shrimp and fish, selenium nanoparticles display superior biocompatibility properties, especially when compared to silver and other metal nanoparticles, which negatively affect normal mammalian cells. Therefore, selenium nanoparticles have many positive prospects for biomedical applications. Different morphologies and sizes of selenium nanoparticles (e.g., nanospheres, nanorods, etc.) can have different medical applications. For instance, the morphology of nanoparticles can influence drug delivery processes, such as nanoparticle adhesion, distribution, and cell internalization. Selenium nanospheres have been mainly studied as candidates for antibacterial applications due to their easy synthesis; however, there are only a limited number of studies using selenium nanorods. In this research, we synthesized selenium nanorods and tested the antibacterial effects of selenium nanorods. The growth of Staphylococcus aureus was efficiently inhibited by selenium nanorods after 4 hours, and this showed that selenium nanorods are a new potential treatment for Staphylococcus aureus infections, especially since they also demonstrated low toxicity towards human dermal fibroblasts cells. Results showed that at least 85% of human dermal fibroblasts cells could survive after being treated with selenium nanorods for 24 hours. As for the inhibition to Staphylococcus aureus, results showed that up to 92% of Staphylococcus aureus can be killed after incubation for 4 hours. Selenium nanorods would be used to treat wound infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus in the future since selenium nanorods have good biocompatibility and efficient antibacterial effects.