Revisiting the microbial biosynthesis of metal nanoparticles and their applications

Metal nanoparticles (NPs) have exerted a powerful attention from investigators from different parts of world because of their unique characteristics such as homogeneous in shape, size, and not harmful to humans or the environment along with a plethora of applications in biomedical fields such as anticancer, antimicrobial, agents for the antibiofilm, targeted drug delivery, biocatalysts, wastewater treatment as well as in agriculture and allied sectors. At the present time, green nanotechnology is being used as an important way to fabricate metal NPs. This eco-friendly approach inculcated numerous capping agents in the form of different compounds and resources of microbial origins for the synthesis of NPs. This review aims to describe the new insights and progresses in recent years on microbe-mediated nanoparticle biosynthesis particularly. The resources of microbial origins mostly include fungi, bacteria, yeast, algae, and cyanobacteria. This review will be an eye opener to better understand the mechanisms and approaches of microbebased NPs biosynthesis along with their applications in agriculture, pharmaceutical industries, and allied sectors with recent insights.