The Synergistic Effect of Zinc Ferrite Nanoparticles Uniformly Deposited on Silver Nanowires for the Biofilm Inhibition of Candida albicans.

Deepika Thakur,Saravanan Govindaraju,Kyusik Yun,Jin-Seo Noh

doi:10.3390/nano9101431

Abstract

Near-monodisperse zinc ferrite nanoparticles (ZnFe2O4 NPs) are synthesized by a co-precipitation method and deposited on the surface of silver nanowires (AgNWs), employing a stepwise solution method. The resulting hybrid nanostructures (ZnFe2O4@AgNWs) show a thin and uniform layer of ZnFe2O4 NPs at an optimum weight ratio of 1:6 between the two component nanostructures. The hybrid nanostructures retain the high crystal quality and phase purity of their constituents. It is demonstrated that the ZnFe2O4@AgNWs hybrid nanostructures are effective at inhibiting the biofilm formation of Candida albicans cells. The biofilm inhibition activity of the hybrid nanostructures is estimated to be more than 50% at a low concentration of 100 µg/mL from both crystal violet assay and XTT assay, which are more than 8-fold higher than those of pure AgNWs and ZnFe2O4 NPs. This greatly enhanced biofilm inhibition activity is attributed to the ZnFe2O4 NPs-carrying membrane penetration by AgNWs and the subsequent interaction between Candida cells and ZnFe2O4 NPs. These results indicate that the ZnFe2O4@AgNWs hybrid nanostructures have great potential as a new type of novel antibiofilm agent.

Highlights

Typical candidiasis can proliferate into a severe fungal infection known as invasive candidiasis [1], which stimulates common oral thrush, vaginal and neonatal candidiasis, and bloodstream infections [2,3]
The biofilm formation of C. albicans increases the resistance to commercial antifungal drugs due to the increased fungal activity in the film [9,10]
It is necessary to regulate the proliferation from normal yeast infection to life-threatening invasive candidiasis, which is capable of infecting multiple organs including the central nervous system, brain, blood, heart, bones, etc

Summary

Introduction

Typical candidiasis can proliferate into a severe fungal infection known as invasive candidiasis [1], which stimulates common oral thrush, vaginal and neonatal candidiasis, and bloodstream infections [2,3]. The regulation of overgrowth is an important factor to suppress parasitic interactions in order to develop into infections Another known phenomenon that indicates the proliferation rate of C. albicans cells through intercellular signaling is quorum sensing [6]. This phenomenon is crucial for phenotypic changes in normal yeast cells. Epidemiological changes and ever-growing drug resistance can cause a high mortality rate of up to 60% for hospitalized patients with invasive candidiasis and related infections [12,13,14]. We synthesized Zn ferrite NPs-deposited AgNWs (ZnFe2O4@AgNWs) hybrid nanostructures to evaluate their biofilm inhibition activity for C. albicans at relatively low concentrations. AgNWs alone did not exhibit an antifungal biofilm effect, whereas the biofilm inhibition activity of AgNWs was greatly enhanced with the addition of ZnFe2O4 NPs, indicating that ZnFe2O4@AgNWs had synergistic effects on C. albicans as an effective antibiofilm agent

Chemicals and Reagents

Synthesis of Hybrid Nanostructures

Morphologies