Metal and Metal Oxide Mycogenic Nanoparticles and Their Application As Antimicrobial and Antibiofilm Agents

Abstract

In the recent decades, nanotechnology showed extensive expansion and contributing different application in various interdisciplinary fields. Nanoparticles are the leading edge of the rapidly growing field of nanotechnology. Nanoparticles are defined as solid particles at the size range of 10–100 nm with at least one dimension. These nanoparticles gain greater attention due to their surface area to volume ratio which makes nanoparticles more reactive. Among the nanomaterials, metal and metal oxide nanoparticles are considered as magic bullets that deal with a wide range of applications. Exploitation of different physiochemical methods in metal and metal oxide nanoparticle synthesis ends up numerous drawbacks such as energy intensive, costly, rely upon toxic chemicals, time-consuming, and produce hazardous waste. Hence, biological synthesis of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles is majorly accepted as alternative technology to overcome limits of physical and chemical methods. Among the biological systems, the synthesis of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles using diverse range fungi has gained significant importance due to their unique properties that facilitate fermentation and downstream process. Usually fungi obey certain mechanism to synthesis the metal and metal oxide nanoparticles. Herein, metal ions are trapped on the surface or inside of the fungi. The trapped metal ions undergo reduction to form nanoparticles in the presence of enzymes and/or organic polymers. Fungi undergo two different modes of nanoparticle synthesis like extracellular and intracellular. Under large-scale production, extracellular process has obvious advantage over an intracellular process to handle the expenses in downstream process. Keeping the inherent advantages of fungal-mediated metal and metal oxide nanoparticle synthesis, fungi are now being gradually employed as myconanofactories for the synthesis of myconanoparticles. Presently, myconanoparticles are gaining attention to employ as antimicrobial and antibiofilm agents. Emergence of antibiotic-resistant microorganism created challenging situation to invent novel therapeutics to eradicate them. Myconanoparticles are an alternative option to eradicate the antibiotic-resistant and biofilm-forming microorganisms. Fungi-mediated synthesis of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles is gaining importance as they are eco-friendly, and fabricated material derived from the fungi enhances the antimicrobial and antibiofilm efficacy.