Highly Efficient Antimicrobial Activity of CuxFeyOz Nanoparticles against Important Human Pathogens

• Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2020-11, Vol.10 (11), p.2294
• Main Authors: Zhu, Lu, Pearson, David W., Benoit, Stéphane L., Xie, Jing, Pant, Jitendra, Yang, Yanjun, Mondal, Arnab, Handa, Hitesh, Howe, Jane Y., Hung, Yen-Con, Vidal, Jorge E., Maier, Robert J., Zhao, Yiping
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antibiotics; Antiinfectives and antibacterials; Antimicrobial activity; Antimicrobial agents; antimicrobial materials; Bacteria; Composite materials; copper iron oxides; copper oxide; Copper oxides; Cytotoxicity; Drug resistance; drug-resistant bacteria; E coli; Efficiency; Fabrication; Ferric oxide; Food safety; Infections; Infectious diseases; inorganic nanomaterials; Klebsiella; Metal oxides; Multidrug resistance; Nanocrystals; Nanomaterials; Nanoparticles; Pathogens; Photocatalysis; Reduction; Salmonella; Scanning electron microscopy; Synthesis; Toxicity; Viability
• ISSN: 2079-4991; 2079-4991
• DOI: 10.3390/nano10112294

The development of innovative antimicrobial materials is crucial in thwarting infectious diseases caused by microbes, as drug-resistant pathogens are increasing in both number and capacity to detoxify the antimicrobial drugs used today. An ideal antimicrobial material should inhibit a wide variety of bacteria in a short period of time, be less or not toxic to normal cells, and the fabrication or synthesis process should be cheap and easy. We report a one-step microwave-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of mixed composite CuxFeyOz (Fe2O3/Cu2O/CuO/CuFe2O) nanoparticles (NPs) as an excellent antimicrobial material. The 1 mg/mL CuxFeyOz NPs with the composition 36% CuFeO2, 28% Cu2O and 36% Fe2O3 have a general antimicrobial activity greater than 5 log reduction within 4 h against nine important human pathogenic bacteria (including drug-resistant bacteria as well as Gram-positive and Gram-negative strains). For example, they induced a >9 log reduction in Escherichia coli B viability after 15 min of incubation, and an ~8 log reduction in multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae after 4 h incubation. Cytotoxicity tests against mouse fibroblast cells showed about 74% viability when exposed to 1 mg/mL CuxFeyOz NPs for 24 h, compared to the 20% viability for 1 mg/mL pure Cu2O NPs synthesized by the same method. These results show that the CuxFeyOz composite NPs are a highly efficient, low-toxicity and cheap antimicrobial material that has promising potential for applications in medical and food safety.