Antifungal activity of multifunctional Fe3O4-Ag nanocolloids

In recent years, rapid increase has been observed in the population of microbes that are resistant to conventionally used antibiotics. Antifungal drug therapy is no exception and now resistance to many of the antifungal agents in use has emerged. Therefore, there is an inevitable and urgent medical need for antibiotics with novel antimicrobial mechanisms. Aspergillus glaucus is the potential cause of fatal brain infections and hypersensitivity pneumonitis in immunocompromised patients and leads to death despite aggressive multidrug antifungal therapy. In the present article, we describe the antifungal activity of multifunctional core-shell Fe3O4-Ag nanocolloids against A. glaucus isolates. Controlled experiments are also carried out with Ag nanocolloids in order to understand the role of core(Fe3O4) in the antifungal action. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of nanocolloids is determined by the micro-dilution method. MIC of A. glaucus is 2000 mu g/mL. The result is quite promising and requires further investigations in order to develop a treatment methodology against this death causing fungus in immunocompromised patients. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.