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Synthesis of highly stable luminescent silver nanoclusters in metal–organic framework for heightened antibacterial activity

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Abstract

Size of the nanoparticles plays a very crucial role in their bactericidal activity as smaller size render better perforation via bacterial cell wall and are thus found to be more effective against resistant bacterial infections also. In this regard, fluorescent silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs) having a size less than 2 nm ought to be a potent bactericidal agent against both Gram positive and Gram negative bacterial strains. However, stabilization of such small sized NPs in aqueous medium that is amenable for biological applications is very challenging. Herein, a simple and fast method of synthesis of Ag NCs was proposed using metal–organic framework (MOFs) as scaffold, which was found to be very stable in the ambient conditions. As-synthesized Ag NCs-in-MOF nanocomposite was characterized by UV–Vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The nanocomposite was highly bactericidal against both Gram positive and Gram negative bacterial strains and caused cell wall perforation that was evident from flow cytometry analysis. Results also showed that DNA damage had occurred due to treatment of Ag NCs-in-MOF, ultimately leading to bacterial cell death with considerably lower dose of silver.

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Acknowledgements

Authors acknowledge department of Chemistry, AMU, Central research facility, Indian Institute of Information Technology Delhi, XPS facility, Indian Institute of Information Technology Kanpur and University Sophisticated Instrument Facility (USIF), Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh for the instrumental support. Authors are thankful to Mr. Somnath Sengupta for his help in conducting Flow cytometry in BD-Jamia Hamdard FACS Academy New Delhi. This work also received financial support from Seed grant of Indian Institute of Information Technology Allahabad and DBT, Gov. of India (BT/IN/Indo-US/Foldscope/39/2015).

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  1. Department of Applied Sciences, Indian Institute of Information Technology Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, 211012, India

    Arushi Verma, Anirudh Singh, Sintu Kumar Samanta & Amaresh Kumar Sahoo

  2. Department of Microbiology, Dr Rammanohar Lohia Avadh University Ayodhya, Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh, 224001, India

    Neetu Shukla

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Verma, A., Singh, A., Shukla, N. et al. Synthesis of highly stable luminescent silver nanoclusters in metal–organic framework for heightened antibacterial activity. Appl. Phys. A 128, 292 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-022-05431-1

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