Silver nanoparticles are broad-spectrum bactericidal and virucidal compounds.
J Nanobiotechnology. 2011 Aug 3;9:30. doi: 10.1186/1477-3155-9-30. Lara HH, Garza-Treviño EN, Ixtepan-Turrent L, Singh DK.
"Interactions between viral biomolecules and silver nanoparticles suggest that the use of nanosystems may contribute importantly for the enhancement of current prevention of infection and antiviral therapies."
Colloids Surf B Biointerfaces. 2010 Sep 1;79(2):340-4. doi: 10.1016/j.colsurfb.2010.04.014. Epub 2010 Apr 22. Kalishwaralal K, BarathManiKanth S, Pandian SR, Deepak V, Gurunathan S.
"Biofilms are ensued due to bacteria that attach to surfaces and aggregate in a hydrated polymeric matrix. Formation of these sessile communities and their inherent resistance to anti-microbial agents are the source of many relentless and chronic bacterial infections." "Hence the present study over the biologically synthesized silver nanoparticles, exhibited a potential anti-biofilm activity that was tested in vitro on biofilms formed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus epidermidis during 24-h treatment. Treating these organisms with silver nanoparticles resulted in more than 95% inhibition in biofilm formation."
Appl Environ Microbiol. 2005 Nov;71(11):7589-93. Yamanaka M, Hara K, Kudo J.
"The present results demonstrate for the first time that one of the major bactericidal functions of the silver ion is its interaction with the ribosome and the ensuing inhibition in expression of the enzymes and proteins essential to ATP production."
Silver enhances antibiotic activity against gram-negative bacteria.
Sci Transl Med. 2013 Jun 19;5(190):190ra81. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3006276. Morones-Ramirez JR1, Winkler JA, Spina CS, Collins JJ.
Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2005 Dec;49(12):4853-9. Chaw KC, Manimaran M, Tay FE.
"In this paper, we report on the potential use of atomic force microscopy (AFM) as a tool to measure the intermolecular forces in biofilm structures and to study the effect of silver ions on sessile Staphylococcus epidermidis cell viability and stability."
Nanoscale Res Lett. 2014 Jul 31;9(1):373. doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-9-373. eCollection 2014. Gurunathan S, Han JW, Kwon DN, Kim JH.
"These data suggest that combining antibiotics and biogenic AgNPs can be used therapeutically for the treatment of infectious diseases caused by bacteria. This study presented evidence of antibacterial and anti-biofilm effects of A. cobbe-mediated synthesis of AgNPs and their enhanced capacity against various human pathogenic bacteria. These results suggest that AgNPs could be used as an adjuvant for the treatment of infectious diseases."
Credits:
Created with images by kaibara87 - "Bacteria" • skeeze - "bacteria electron microscope stained" • NIAID - "Klebsiella pneumoniae Bacteria" • Filter Forge - "Germatopia" • eLife - the journal - "Bacteria infect tissues using ‘chemical harpoons’" • NIAID - "Staphylococcus epidermidis Bacteria"