Mini review: biologically synthesized nanoparticles as antifungal agents

Fungal infections are affecting millions of people in the world every year. Severity of infections range from superficial mycoses to more chronic systemic mycoses. As more fungi species evolve, emergence of drug resistant strains is becoming a serious concern to the public health. There is now less number of effective antifungal drugs available in the market for treatment of invasive fungal infections. In an effort to combat this escalating issue, the use of nanoparticles as antifungal agent has been proposed and explored. Versatility of nanoparticles and its unique physico-chemical properties are proven beneficial for developing new therapeutic methods in treatment of fungal infections. Nanoparticles produced from biological synthesis have attracted keen interests from researchers, as they are more environmentally friendly, sustainable, cost-effective, and biocompatible. This mini review will provide an insight on the current antifungal studies and discuss the theory behind mechanism of actions of nanoparticles

Copper/graphene based materials nanocomposites and their antibacterial study: a mini review

Due to their biocidal activity properties, graphene based materials have been widely studied especially in biomedical, agriculture and water treatment process which focus on mitigating the microbial resistance problem. However, the antibacterial performance of these materials alone are relatively weak and need to be improved in order to enhance their biological activity. Copper nanoparticles is a low cost metal also has the antibacterial properties which is almost similar with the silver and gold nanoparticles. The combination of these two materials had produced to a new potential material as another alternative for the antibacterial agents. Therefore, in this work, a brief review of copper/graphene based material nanocomposites and their antibacterial study was discussed

Enhanced antibacterial and anticancer activities of plant extract mediated green synthesized zinc oxide-silver nanoparticles

This study presents a green synthesis approach for the fabrication of zinc oxide-silver nanoparticles (ZnO-Ag-NPs) using Punica granatum fruit peels extract as a natural reducing and stabilizing agent. This eco-friendly method offers a sustainable alternative to conventional methods that often employ toxic or hazardous chemicals. Antibacterial and anti-cancer activities of the green synthesized nanoparticles were then assessed in vitro. X-ray diffraction confirmed the production of ZnO-Ag-NPs with increasing crystallinity in higher pH values. The ZnO-Ag-NPs were found to be agglomerated with spherical Ag-NPs. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectra revealed a broad band in ZnO-Ag-NPs ranging from 400−1 to 530 cm−1 with reduced intensity as compared to ZnO-NPs, indicating the formation of Ag-NPs on the surface of ZnO-NPs. The synthesized ZnO-Ag-NPs exhibited potent antibacterial activity against a broad spectrum of bacterial strains, particularly Gram-positive bacteria, with superior inhibition activity compared to ZnO-NPs. Moreover, ZnO-Ag-NPs showed a dose-dependent anti-proliferative effect on colorectal-, lung-, and cervical cancer cells. ZnO-Ag-NPs showed significantly greater efficacy in inhibiting cancer cell growth at a lower concentration of 31.25 μg/mL, compared to ZnO-NPs which required over 500 μg/mL, possibly due to the presence of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs). The results obtained from this study demonstrate the potential of green synthesis approaches in the fabrication of therapeutic nanomaterials for cancer treatment, as well as other biomedical applications