Abstract
Due to their versatile applications, gold (Au) and silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) have been synthesized by many approaches, including green processes using plant extracts for reducing metal ions. In this work, we propose to use plant extract with active biomedical components for NPs synthesis, aiming to obtain NPs inheriting the biomedical functions of the plants. By using leaves extract of Clerodendrum inerme (C. inerme) as both a reducing agent and a capping agent, we have synthesized gold (CI-Au) and silver (CI-Ag) NPs covered with biomedically active functional groups from C. inerme. The synthesized NPs were evaluated for different biological activities such as antibacterial and antimycotic against different pathogenic microbes (B. subtilis, S. aureus, Klebsiella, and E. coli) and (A. niger, T. harzianum, and A. flavus), respectively, using agar well diffusion assays. The antimicrobial propensity of NPs further assessed by reactive oxygen species (ROS) glutathione (GSH) and FTIR analysis. Biofilm inhibition activity was also carried out using colorimetric assays. The antioxidant and cytotoxic potential of CI-Au and CI-Ag NPs was determined using DPPH free radical scavenging and MTT assay, respectively. The CI-Au and CI-Ag NPs were demonstrated to have much better antioxidant in terms of %DPPH scavenging (75.85% ± 0.67% and 78.87% ± 0.19%), respectively. They exhibited excellent antibacterial, antimycotic, biofilm inhibition and cytotoxic performance against pathogenic microbes and MCF-7 cells compared to commercial Au and Ag NPs functionalized with dodecanethiol and PVP, respectively. The biocompatibility test further corroborated that CI-Ag and CI-Au NPs are more biocompatible at the concentration level of 1–50 µM. Hence, this work opens a new environmentally-friendly path for synthesizing nanomaterials inherited with enhanced and/or additional biomedical functionalities inherited from their herbal sources.
Highlights
Development of multi-drug resistance (MDR) in bacterial strains, including Enterococci, Staphylococci, Klebsiella, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Enterobacter species, etc., has become a severe challenge [1]
The green synthesized CI-Au NPs and CI-Ag NPs were assessed for their biofilm inhibition activity against pathogenic bacterial (B. subtilis, S. aureus, Klebsiella, and E. coli) and fungal strains (Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, and Trichoderma harzianum)
The statistical significance of the hemolytic activity results was further corroborated by the ANOVA (p < 0.001, F-value = 117,502.57) and Tukey test (Figure S2)
Summary
Development of multi-drug resistance (MDR) in bacterial strains, including Enterococci, Staphylococci, Klebsiella, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Enterobacter species, etc., has become a severe challenge [1]. We propose that if plants with intrinsic biomedical applications are used for preparing metal NPs, the obtained NPs might be capped with some of the biologically active components and inheriting their biomedical functions. To implement this concept, we have chosen leaves of C. inerme, which has been widely used for treating venereal infections, cough, fever, skin diseases, microbial infections, rheumatism, leprosy, etc., as the raw materials for preparing Au and Ag NPs [18,19,20]. AGPB5-1M) purchased from Sigma-Aldrich and nanoComposix, respectively, as well as prototypical standard compounds including butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT, an antioxidant), Cephradine (an antibiotic drug), terbinafine hydrochloride (an antifungal medicine)
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