Abstract
Objective: Resistance to antibacterial agents by pathogenic bacteria has emerged in recent years and is a major challenge for the healthcare industry. Copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) are known to be one of the multifunctional inorganic nanoparticles with effective antibacterial activity. Hence the present investigation has been focused on synthesizing and evaluating the bactericidal effect of copper nanoparticles.Methods: CuNPs were synthesized by reducing the aqueous solution of copper sulfate with sodium borohydride. The synthesized particles were characterized by x-ray diffractogram (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) techniques to analyze size, morphology and quantitative information respectively. The antibacterial activity of CuNPs was examined by agar well diffusion method. Synergistic effect of CuNPs with broad-spectrum antibiotics was determined by the agar disc diffusion method.Results: Color change of reaction mixture from blue to dark brown indicated the formation of CuNPs. SEM image clearly demonstrated that the synthesized particles were spherical in shape and its size was found to be 17.85 nm. EDS report confirmed the presence of elemental copper in the resultant nanoparticles and its accounts for major proportion (96%) of the mass of nanoparticles. Bacterial effect of CuNPs revealed that Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed the highest antibacterial sensitivity (16.00±1.63 mm), whereas least susceptibility (9.67±0.47 mm) was noticed against Staphylococcus aureus. An enhanced antibacterial activity of commercial antibiotics was also noticed when it combined with CuNPS. A minimum zone of inhibition was increased from 0.67±0.47 mm to 10.66±0.24 mm when the nanoparticles and antibiotics were given together.Conclusion: It was observed that copper nanoparticles exhibited profound activity against all the tested bacterial strains which shows that CuNPs may serve as a better option for use in medicine in the future.
Highlights
Emerging infectious diseases and the increase in the incidence of drug resistance among pathogenic bacteria have made the search for new antimicrobials inevitable
The copper-fluoro polymer nano-composite is employed as bioactive coatings that are capable of inhibiting the growth of target microorganisms such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Listeria [8]
Shahverdi et al [14] reported that appearance of dark brown color in the reaction solution indicated the formation of copper nanoparticles and this color arises from excitation of surface plasmon vibration in the metal nanoparticles
Summary
Emerging infectious diseases and the increase in the incidence of drug resistance among pathogenic bacteria have made the search for new antimicrobials inevitable. Among the noble metal nanoparticles, copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) have attracted great attention because of their catalytic and optical properties, high electrical and heat conductivity [3]. Copper (Cu) has long been known to have antimicrobial activity and is used in drinking water treatment and transportation. It has been recognized by the American environmental protection agency (EPA) as the first metallic antimicrobial agent in 2008 [4]. Bactericidal effect of CuNPs has been attributed to their small size and high surface to volume ratio, which allows them to interact closely with microbial membrane and is not merely due to the release of metal ions in solution [6]. The objective of the present study was to fabricate and investigate the antibacterial efficacy of copper nanoparticles and the combinatorial effect of nanoparticles impregnated along with major broad-spectrum antibiotics
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