Nanoparticles (NPs) have gained great attention in agriculture due to their diverse use, however, their release and persistence in the environment are inevitable. The unintentional release of NPs in the environment poses a threat to farming. The unique physicochemical properties of NPs enable them to easily interact with biomolecules and pathways. Therefore, they are capable of inducing oxidative stress followed by interference with the plant growth and induce genotoxicity. On the other hand, some NPs have huge potential to ameliorate stress, promote growth, and enhance the yield performance of the crops. This review has covered such key aspects of NPs and has also covered the emerging applications, challenges, and future prospects.

Nanoparticles induced stress and toxicity in plants

Molecular design and preparation of 2-aminothiazole sulfanilamide oximes as membrane active antibacterial agents for drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii.

This work aimed at the gamma irradiation-assisted synthesis of silver (Ag)-decorated ZnFe2O4 (ZFO) ferrite nanoparticles (NPs), which were tested for their antibacterial and antibiofilm activities against some pathogenic bacteria from medical operating room surfaces. The prepared Ag-decorated ZFO NPs were characterized via XRD, SEM, EDX, elemental mapping, and FTIR analysis. The antibacterial potential was tested as ZOI and MIC, while antibiofilm activity was estimated by the tube method. The growth curve assay, the effect of UV on the antimicrobial activity, and cell membrane leakage were evaluated, and the antibacterial reaction mechanism was investigated by SEM/EDX analysis. The XRD and FTIR results confirmed the successful preparation of Ag-decorated ZFO NPs. Antibacterial results revealed that the most potent decorated sample was Ag0.75@ZFO NPs, recording the most significant inhibition zone against Staphylococcus vitulinus (24.67 ± 0.577 mm) and low MIC (0.097 μg mL−1) against S. vitulinus. The antibiofilm activity of Ag0.75@ZFO NPs was the highest, recorded as 97.3% for S. aureus and 95.25% for Enterococcus columbae. In the case of UV exposure, bacterial growth reached the lowest grade. Finally, it was seen that the amount of cellular protein released from bacterial cells is directly proportional to the concentration of Ag0.75@ZFO NPs, which clearly explains the formation of pits in the cell membrane. The synthesized nanocomposites may find an application after mixing with operating room paints to reduce the harmful effect of pathogenic microbes and, therefore, eliminate bacterial contamination.

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Antibacterial and antibiofilm activities of silver-decorated zinc ferrite nanoparticles synthesized by a gamma irradiation-coupled sol–gel method against some pathogenic bacteria from medical operating room surfaces

In the current investigation, 16 samples of six species of the genus Polygonatum were collected from different geographical regions in China. Leaf micromorphological traits were studied in detail using scanning electron microscopy. About five-leaf samples were used for each species collected from different geographical regions. A significant variation was found in the foliar epidermal traits such as stomata types and their distribution, epidermal cell shape, anticlinal wall pattern, and various types of trichomes. Polygonal epidermal cells were observed in P. cyrtonema, P. odoratum, P. sibiricum, and P. filipes, rectangular in P. zanlanscianense and P. odoratum and irregular shape in P. filipes and P. zanlanscianense. Straight anticlinal wall pattern was observed in most of the species, but straight to little undulate was observed in P. cyrtonema, P. filipes, and P. zanlanscianense. Similarly, various shape stomata that are, oval, oblong, and elliptical and types that is, paracytic, anomocytic, and actinocytic have been observed. Based on the foliar traits, the P. odoratum and P. sibiricum were found closely related to one another. On the other hand, P. involucratum and P. zanlanscianense shows a strong association. However, P. filipes showed very less similarity with the other five species. Hence this study adds useful information that may be helpful in the further taxonomic classification of the taxa at subspecies level and was found significant in the correct identification and discrimination of the closely related taxa of the genus Polygonatum.

Foliar epidermal micromorphology and its taxonomic significance in Polygonatum (Asparagaceae) using scanning electron microscopy.

The emergence and rapid spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria strains are a public health concern. This emergence is caused by the overuse and misuse of antibiotics leading to the evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains. Nanoparticles (NPs) are objects with all three external dimensions in the nanoscale that varies from 1 to 100 nm. Research on NPs with enhanced antimicrobial activity as alternatives to antibiotics has grown due to the increased incidence of nosocomial and community acquired infections caused by pathogens. Machine learning (ML) tools have been used in the field of nanoinformatics with promising results. As a consequence of evident achievements on a wide range of predictive tasks, ML techniques are attracting significant interest across a variety of stakeholders. In this article, we present an ML tool that successfully predicts the antibacterial capacity of NPs while the model’s validation demonstrates encouraging results (R2 = 0.78). The data were compiled after a literature review of 60 articles and consist of key physico-chemical (p-chem) properties and experimental conditions (exposure variables and bacterial clustering) from in vitro studies. Following data homogenization and pre-processing, we trained various regression algorithms and we validated them using diverse performance metrics. Finally, an important attribute evaluation, which ranks the attributes that are most important in predicting the outcome, was performed. The attribute importance revealed that NP core size, the exposure dose, and the species of bacterium are key variables in predicting the antibacterial effect of NPs. This tool assists various stakeholders and scientists in predicting the antibacterial effects of NPs based on their p-chem properties and diverse exposure settings. This concept also aids the safe-by-design paradigm by incorporating functionality tools.

Mian Muhammad Irfan

Papers

Microbial synthesized cadmium oxide nanoparticles induce oxidative stress and protein leakage in bacterial cells.