Institute of Science Education and Research, IISER Bhopal's research team has developed a safe procedure to produce silver nanomaterials.
The easy process to produce silver nanomaterials can also be used as antimicrobial agents. The work and details related to the easy process have been published in the American Chemical Society – ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces journal.
The team of researchers from IISER Bhopal comprising Preeti Sagarika, Subhajit Chakraborty, Saurabh Rai, Chandan Sahi and Saptarshi Mukherjee has also authored the paper.
As per the study, one of the serious conditions is the antibiotic resistance, wherein the bacteria and other microbes invade the human body and become resistant to the antibiotics/antimicrobials that are meant to kill them.
Due to rampant and indiscriminate use of antibiotics in humans, livestock, and agriculture, the problem is extremely serious. Therefore, there is a strong need for antibiotic substitutes and nanotechnological solutions are required, which has been researched by the IISER Bhopal team.
Speaking about the development, Saptarshi Mukherjee from Department of Chemistry, IISER Bhopal, said that silver is the common ornamental metal and when it is present as nano-sized particles, they are one hundred thousand times smaller than the width of a single human hair, that have good antimicrobial properties.
Mukherjee said that silvers have been used by medical practitioners in different forms to prevent infections and promote healing from the olden days.
In order to produce nanomaterials of silver that had good antimicrobial properties, the IISER Bhopal researchers used amino acid Tyrosine, which can be found in many food items, including meat, dairy, nuts, and beans.
Then, the researchers treated silver nitrate, the main component of the ‘election ink’, used to stain nails after voting in India, with tyrosine in the presence of caustic soda.
Tyrosine acted as a reducing agent and capping agent to produce silver nanomaterials and on scrutinizing the product under high-resolution microscopes (TEM and SEM), the researchers found nanoclusters and nanoparticles, the two forms of silver nanostructures.
The nanoparticles were found to kill microbes such as S cerevisiae (associated with pneumonia, peritonitis, UTI etc.), C albicans (oral and genital infections), E coli (stomach infection), and B cereus (stomach infection), in about four hours.
The research team explained the mechanism by which the nanoparticles kill microbes. They found that the nanoparticles generate “singlet oxygen species” which elevates the cellular stress and eventually breaks or opens/disrupts the cell membrane of the microbes, causing leakage of proteins from the cells, thereby killing them.
The above-mentioned process produces nanoparticles that have microbicidal action, while the smaller sized nanoclusters are luminescent that can be used as bioimaging probes.
Talking about the practical implications of research work, Professor Mukherjee said that the product produced by the researchers of IISER Bhopal consist of two components that can be used for multiple purposes, from photophysical studies to applications in biological systems.
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