1 research outputs found
Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Dispersed in Ionic Liquids Show High Antimicrobial Efficacy to Skin-Specific Bacteria
Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles have
been shown
in the literature to have antibacterial properties and have been widely
used in antibacterial formulations. However, one of the problems with
ZnO nanoparticles is their tendency to aggregate, thereby causing
damage to normal cells and lowering their antibacterial efficacy during
application. In this work, we have attempted to avoid this by using
a combination of ZnO nanoparticles and ionic liquids, a class of low
melting salts containing organic cations and organic/inorganic anions
that show antibacterial property as well, and tested the antibacterial
activity of this dispersion. ZnO nanoparticles of 60 nm were dispersed
in two different ionic liquidsî—¸choline acetate (IL1) and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium
chloride (IL2)î—¸to achieve high dispersibility, whereas ZnO
dispersed in phosphate-buffered saline was taken as a control. These
dispersions were tested on four strainsî—¸Escherichia
coli, Bacillus subtilis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus epidermidis. Maximum efficiency was
obtained for ZnO nanoparticles dispersed in imidazolium-based ionic
liquids against skin-specific S. epidermidis. Skin infections induced by S. epidermidis are prevalent in hospital-acquired diseases. In most cases, traditional
antibiotic-based therapies fail to combat such infections. Our strategy
of developing a dispersion of ZnO nanoparticles in ionic liquids shows
superior antibacterial efficacy in comparison to that shown individually
by ZnO nanoparticles or ionic liquids. We have also established that
the mechanism of killing this skin-specific bacterium is possibly
through the production of reactive oxygen species leading to bacterial
cell lysis. Further, we showed that this formulation is biocompatible
and nontoxic to normal keratinocyte cells even under coculture conditions