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In any therapeutic modality the usage of drug in high doses often leads to serious side-effects. Herein, we demonstrated a method to enhance the antibacterial efficacy of CuS NPs at lower concentration through interacting with jackfruit seed lectin, jacalin. Fluorescence quenching studies revealed that jacalin form complex with CuS NPs and the association constant was 1.91 × 10 4  M -1 . Upon complex with jacalin, the bacterial minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of CuS NPs drastically decreases from 12.5 μM to 0.78 μM. The addition of jacalin specific sugar, galactose to jacalin-CuS NPs complex (JCuS NPs) reverses the MIC from 0.78 μM to 25 μM. Mechanistic study suggests that JCuS NPs kills bacteria in part by reactive oxygen species and membrane damage, but galactose prevents the action of JCuS NPs at 0.78 μM. JCuS NPs successfully reduce (14 fold) A. hydrophila colonization in an infected zerbra fish and rescue them completely from the infection, but galJCuS NPs and CuS NPs were ineffective at 0.78 μM. Collectively, our studies demonstrates that the enhance antibacterial activity of JCuS NPs is likely due to the interaction between the galactose binding site of jacalin and the bacterial strains, as a result NPs are targeted and delivered sufficiently., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Bacterial resistance is a major clinical problem, which is compounded by both a lack of new antibiotics and emergence of multi- and extremely-drug resistant microbes. In this context, non-toxic nanoparticles could play an important role in conferring protection against bacterial infections and in this study we have made an attempt to show the usefulness of jacalin capped platinum nanoparticles in protecting zebrafish against multiple infections with Aeromonas hydrophila. Our results also indicate that use of nanoparticles promotes adaptive immune response against the pathogen, so much so that zebrafish is able to survive repetitive infection even after twenty one days of being treated with jacalin-capped platinum nanoparticles. This is significant given that platinum salt is not antibacterial and jacalin is non-immunogenic. Our study for the first time reveals a novel mechanism of action of nanoparticles, which could form an alternate antibacterial strategy with minimal bacterial resistance.

Abstract A simple single-stage method, based on refluxing edible carrot with aqueous trisodium phosphate (TSP) has been reported to synthesize blue color luminescent carbon dots (CDs). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image showed that CDs are almost spherical in shape and the size is around 3–8 nm. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and 1H NMR spectroscopy study revealed that the carbohydrates present in the carrot undergone carbonization to produce luminescent CDs. Optimization study indicate that refluxing 5 g of carrot in 80 mM TSP aqueous solution for 120 min is adequate to produce highly luminescent blue CDs. The CDs produced are used as luminophore to image bacteria through fluorescence microscopy. CDs have membrane good permeability and minimum toxicity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. The CDs capability for direct reduction of silver ions to elemental silver (Ag0) and gold ions to elemental gold (Au0) without additional reducing and stabilizing agent was demonstrated. The resulting Ag and Au nanoparticles have a size of 8–22 nm and 5–15 nm, respectively. The catalytic activity of nanoparticles in the hydrogenation reaction was investigated. The results suggest that the nanoparticles had high catalytic activity in the sodium borohydride mediated hydrogenation of nitroaromatic compounds. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • Easily adaptable procedure to synthesis carbon dots was reported. • CDs has good membrane permeability to label live cells. • CDs reduces silver and gold ions into nanoparticles. • Silver and gold nanoparticles exhibit good catalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the application of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) synthesized using a biomimetic lipid, N-myristoyltaurine (N14T) was evaluated in common fields. The catalytic effectiveness of AgNPs and AuNPs was studied in the popular nanocatalyst reaction, nitroaromatic reduction, and dye degradation. Both NPs display catalytic activity in the nitroaromatic compound and organic dyes reduction reaction involving sodium borohydride and the rate constant is estimated as 10−3 s−1. Strikingly, the reaction initiation time (t 0) and completion time (t c) differ significantly between AgNPs and AuNPs. Analyzing the reaction kinetic profile revealed that the reaction carried out with AuNPs showed a shorter t 0 and t c , suggesting a better catalyst than AgNPs. In addition, the efficiency of the NPs was examined in Gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis) and Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli , Pseudomonas aeruginosa). In difference to the catalytic study, AuNPs display poor antibacterial activity. Whereas AgNPs kill the tested bacteria at 250 μM via disturbing bacterial membrane integrity and produce excess reactive oxygen species. The toxicology study carried out with zebrafish animal model reveals that both AgNPs and AuNPs are non-toxic. The findings suggest that each nanomaterial possesses unique physicochemical properties irrespective of stabilization with the same molecules. •Both NPs display catalytic activity in the nitroaromatic compound and organic dyes reduction •the reaction initiation time (t0) and completion time (tc) differ significantly between AgNPs and AuNPs. • the reaction carried out with AuNPs showed a shorter t0 and tc, suggesting a better catalyst than AgNPs. •The toxicology study carried out with zebrafish animal model reveals that both AgNPs and AuNPs are non-toxic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]