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Antipathogenic Efficacy of Biogenic Silver Nanoparticles and Antibiofilm Activities Against Multi-drug-Resistant ESKAPE Pathogens

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Abstract

The silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were produced by employing a biogenic loom and tested for antipathogenic assets against multi-drug-resistant (MDR) ESKAPE bacteria. Biogenically synthesized AgNPs were characterized adopting various high-throughput techniques such as UHRTEM, SEM with EDX, DLS, TGA-DTA, and XRD and spectroscopic analysis showed polydispersion of nanoparticles. In this context, AgNPs with the attribute of spherical-shaped nanoparticles with an average size of 26 nm were successfully synthesized utilizing bacterial supernatant. The antipathogenic activities of AgNPs were assessed against 11 strains of MDR ESKAPE bacteria including Enterococcus faecium; methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus; Klebsiella pneumonia; Acinetobacter baumannii; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; Enterobacter aerogenes; and Enterobacter species. The exposure of biogenic AgNPs in a well diffusion assay showed all the growth inhibitions of ESKAPE bacteria at 200 μg/ml after 18 h of incubation. Growth kinetics demonstrated maximum killing at 60 μg/ml after 4 h of completion. The highest biofilm depletions were found at 100 μg/ml in adhesion assay. Live/dead assays showed effective killing of the ESKAPE bacteria at 10 μg/ml in pre-existing biofilms. The effective inhibitory concentrations of AgNPs were investigated ranging from 10 to 200 μg/ml. The selected pathogens found sensitive to AgNPs are statistically significant (P < 0.05) than that of cefotaxime/AgNO3. Consequently, a broad spectrum of antimicrobial potentials of AgNPs can be alternative to conventional antimicrobial agents for future medicine.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are pleased to express thanks to ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) for awarding Senior Research Fellowship [File No: AMR/Fellowship/6/2019/ECD-II] and SAIF, IIT-Madras for providing the facility to complete the characterization studies.

Funding

The DST Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), India [SERB/LS-267/2014] and AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy), India [28015/209/2015-HPC], provided grants and fellowships to carry out this research.

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  1. School of Life Sciences, B.S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science and Technology, GST Road, Vandalur, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600 048, India

    Mohd Hashim Khan, Sneha Unnikrishnan & Karthikeyan Ramalingam

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Contributions

Mohd Hashim Khan: material preparation, investigation, experimental design, formal analysis, validation, and writing original draft.

Sneha Unnikrishnan: formal analysis and validation.

Karthikeyan Ramalingam: supervision of the work, corrections, and review and editing of the manuscript.

All authors of the article read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Karthikeyan Ramalingam.

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Khan, M.H., Unnikrishnan, S. & Ramalingam, K. Antipathogenic Efficacy of Biogenic Silver Nanoparticles and Antibiofilm Activities Against Multi-drug-Resistant ESKAPE Pathogens. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 196, 2031–2052 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-023-04630-7

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