Abstract
Pure ZnO and Neodymium (Nd) doped ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized by the co-precipitation method. The synthesized nanoparticles retained the wurtzite hexagonal structure. From FESEM studies, ZnO and Nd doped ZnO NPs showed nanorod and nanoflower like morphology respectively. The FT-IR spectra confirmed the Zn-O stretching bands at 422 and 451 cm−1 for ZnO and Nd doped ZnO NPs respectively. From the UV-VIS spectroscopic measurement, the excitonic peaks were found around 373 nm and 380 nm for the respective samples. The photoluminescence measurements revealed that the broad emission was composed of ten different bands due to zinc vacancies, oxygen vacancies and surface defects. The antibacterial studies performed against extended spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) producing strains of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae showed that the Nd doped ZnO NPs possessed a greater antibacterial effect than the pure ZnO NPs. From confocal laser scanning microscopic (CLSM) analysis, the apoptotic nature of the cells was confirmed by the cell shrinkage, disorganization of cell wall and cell membrane and dead cell of the bacteria. SEM analysis revealed the existence of bacterial loss of viability due to an impairment of cell membrane integrity, which was highly consistent with the damage of cell walls.
Highlights
Because of many biological processes taking place at the nanoscale level, there is the potential that engineered nanomaterials may interact with biomolecules and cellular processes[1]
The Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Klebsiella pneumonia (K. pneumonia) are predominant extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs) producers associated with urinary tract infection and sometimes it progresses to more serious infections like blood poisoning, which can be life threatening[33,34,35,36]
The standard diffraction peaks reveal that the crystal structure of ZnO and Nd doped ZnO NPs is of hexagonal wurtzite structure
Summary
Because of many biological processes taking place at the nanoscale level, there is the potential that engineered nanomaterials may interact with biomolecules and cellular processes[1]. The modification of metal oxide nanoparticles by doping or substituting with special atom(s) gives a possibility to improve the electrical and optical properties of materials by changing the surface properties. The electrostatic attraction between negatively charged bacterial cells and positively charged nanoparticles is crucial for the activity of nanoparticles as bactericidal materials This interaction inhibits the bacterial growth and induces the reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, which leads to cell death[21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29]. To the best of our knowledge, the antibacterial (ESBLs producing strains E. coli and K. pneumoniae) properties have not been reported for the Nd doped ZnO NPs
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