Highly Surface Active Anisotropic Silver Nanoparticles as Antimicrobial Agent Against Human Pathogens, Mycobacterium smegmatis and Candida albicans.

Rapid synthesis of anisotropic silver nanoparticles via cost‐effective, non‐hazardous, and eco‐friendly methods using naturally available gums are of greater significance as their chemical synthesis is associated with high toxicity. This study aims to synthesize highly surface‐active anisotropic silver nanoparticles and evaluate their antimicrobial efficacy against human pathogens, Mycobacterium smegmatis and Candida albicans. Anisotropic silver nanoparticles were synthesized using silver nitrate as the metal precursor and gum arabic as the template. The synthesized silver nanoparticles were characterized by UV‐visible spectroscopy, fourier transformation infra‐red (FTIR) spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS) analysis, high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy and selected area electron diffraction (HRTEM‐SAED) analysis and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). TEM analysis showed the anisotropy and monodispersed nature of silver nanoparticles with an average size of less than 20 nm. The antibacterial and antifungal properties of the anisotropic silver nanoparticles were also studied keeping rifampicin and fluconazole as the reference. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was found to be 1 mM silver nanoparticles for both M. smegmatis and C. albicans. Synthesized anisotropic silver nanoparticles can be used as an alternative to antibiotics to treat the infections caused by M. smegmatis and C. albicans. Further, the effect of silver nanoparticles on haemolytic activity was also studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]