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Dear Colleagues,

The problem of the presence of multidrug-resistant bacteria in the human environment has worsened the difficult clinical situation due to the reduced antimicrobial activity of known antibiotics. An example of such microbes is the group of pathogenic bacteria called ESKAPE. The acronym ESKAPE consists of the first letters of the generic names of the following bacteria: Enterococcus, Staphylococcus, Klebsiella, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, and Enterobacteriaceae. This acronym covers bacterial pathogens that cannot be eliminated using classical antibiotics.

In addition, there is a growing concern regarding infections associated with the biofilm formation, which may be resistant to the currently available arsenal of antimicrobial agents. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop alternative protocols for combating antimicrobial resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs.

Over the last two decades, there has been a significant increase in the use of nanodrugs as innovative tools to combat the antimicrobial resistance of pathogens. In this respect, nanomaterials have shown promise due to their unique physical and chemical properties. Their large surface in relation to the volume allows for close interaction with microbial membranes as well as their surface functionalization. Scientists are primarily interested in metal nanoparticles as innovative tools to combat pathogen resistance to conventional antimicrobial agents. The antimicrobial activity of several metals, metal oxides, metal halides, and bimetallic nanoparticles has been well documented. Moreover, the functionalization of nanoparticles using chemotherapeutic drugs is not only a promising nanoplatform for combating bacterial resistance but may also reduce the dose of the drug and, thus, its toxicity.

On the other hand, antimicrobial nanoparticles can be entrapped in polymer membranes to form hybrid nanoparticles or nanocomposites. It is also possible to improve the therapeutic efficacy of nanoparticles and reduce their toxicity by modifying the surface using ligands or antibodies.

We are interested in manuscripts that report new antimicrobial protocols related to various nano-sized materials but also provide reviews of the subject.

Prof. Dr. Irena Maliszewska
Guest Editor

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Keywords

metallic nanoparticles
bimetallic nanoparticles
antimicrobial activity
polymeric nanomaterials
nanoplatforms
nanoparticle functionalization
delivery of antimicrobial agents

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Research

16 pages, 2172 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Antibacterial Mechanism of Action, Tyrosinase Inhibition, and Photocatalytic Degradation Potential of Sericin-Based Gold Nanoparticles

Gitishree Das

and

Jayanta Kumar Patra

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(11), 9477; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24119477 - 30 May 2023

Viewed by 923

Abstract

In recent times, numerous natural materials have been used for the fabrication of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). Natural resources used for the synthesis of AuNPs are more environment friendly than chemical resources. Sericin is a silk protein that is discarded during the degumming process for obtaining silk. The current research used sericin silk protein waste materials as the reducing agent for the manufacture of gold nanoparticles (SGNPs) by a one-pot green synthesis method. Further, the antibacterial effect and antibacterial mechanism of action, tyrosinase inhibition, and photocatalytic degradation potential of these SGNPs were evaluated. The SGNPs displayed positive antibacterial activity (8.45–9.58 mm zone of inhibition at 50 μg/disc) against all six tested foodborne pathogenic bacteria, namely, Enterococcus feacium DB01, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 13565, Listeria monocytogenes ATCC 33090, Escherichia coli O157:H7 ATCC 23514, Aeromonas hydrophila ATCC 7966, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27583. The SGNPs also exhibited promising tyrosinase inhibition potential, with 32.83% inhibition at 100 μg/mL concentration as compared to 52.4% by Kojic acid, taken as a reference standard compound. The SGNPs also displayed significant photocatalytic degradation effects, with 44.87% methylene blue dye degradation after 5 h of incubation. Moreover, the antibacterial mode of action of the SGNPs was also investigated against E. coli and E. feacium, and the results show that due to the small size of the nanomaterials, they could have adhered to the surface of the bacterial pathogens, and could have released more ions and dispersed in the bacterial cell wall surrounding environment, thereby disrupting the cell membrane and ROS production, and subsequently penetrating the bacterial cells, resulting in lysis or damage to the cell by the process of structural damage to the membrane, oxidative stress, and damage to the DNA and bacterial proteins. The overall outcome of the current investigation concludes the positive effects of the obtained SGNPs and their prospective applications as a natural antibacterial agent in cosmetics, environmental, and foodstuff industries, and for the management of environmental contagion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Antimicrobial Nanomaterials 2.0)

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