As public health concerns continue to grow about the scale and pace of antimicrobial resistance, alternative strategies and materials are needed. In this aspect, inorganic nanoparticles are increasingly studied as potential alternative antibacterial agents. One such material is colloidal gold nanoparticles. Large gold nanoparticles ( &gt; 2 nm) are mostly utilized as drug delivery vectors as they are biologically inert. On the other hand, smaller (&lt; 2 nm) gold nanoclusters (AuNC) have shown promising antimicrobial activity particularly against Gram-positive bacteria. Due to their size, AuNC show a dualism in properties between organo-gold complexes and colloidal nanoparticles - for instance sharing a defined stoichiometric formula with the former, and having an inner core/passivating ligand shell structure typical of the latter. However, attempts to apply these clusters in antibacterial use have not been straightforward due to their noted toxicity to mammalian cells. To combat this, we present an approach modulating toxicity using carbohydrates. The synthesis and characterization of these new AuNCs will be presented, together with the antimicrobial activities against Gram-positive as well as Gram-negative bacteria. The cytotoxicity of these AuNCs will be evaluated using a hemolytic assay and on human lung cancer cells.<br/>

Antimicrobial carbohydrate-passivated gold nanoclusters

256th National Meeting (2018)

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