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Green Synthesized Silver Nanoparticles Exhibit Reduced Toxicity to Mammalian Cells and Retain Antimicrobial Activity
Citation:
Robinson, J., B. Demmitt, T. Collins, T. Gorey, R. Posgai, R. S. VARMA, S. Hussain, AND J. Rowe. Green Synthesized Silver Nanoparticles Exhibit Reduced Toxicity to Mammalian Cells and Retain Antimicrobial Activity . Presented at ACS National meeting , Anahein, CA, March 27 - 31, 2011.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform EPA
Description:
The interest in silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and silver nanomaterial stems from their antimicrobial properties. AgNPs are being added to clothing, paint, refrigerators, washing machines and a variety of other commercially available items. Recent in vitro and in vivo studies, however, have shown their toxicity is not limited to bacteria and may involve acute and long term, chronic effects to humans and other organisms. Recently it has been reported that green tea and epicatechin synthesized AgNPs have a significantly lower in vitro toxicity to human mammalian kerotinocytes. We report here the antimicrobial activity of traditionally synthesized uncoated, and polysaccharide coated AgNPs and compare the results to epicatechin synthesized AgNPs. Our results indicate that traditionally synthesized coated and uncoated AgNPs are toxic to both bacteria and human kerotinocytes. In contrast, the epicatechin-synthesized particles were significantly less toxic to kerotinocytes but still retained antimicrobial activity. These initial results suggest that green synthesis of AgNPs might be applied to create particles that can be used as an effective antimicrobial without significant side effects to higher organisms.