Interactions of Mesoporous Silica and Zno Nanoparticles with Escherichia Coli

Nanotechnology has created a plethora of diverse approaches that are being exploited for various applications in quantum electronics, sensing, catalysis, non-linear optics, biomedicines, therapeutics and many more. Nanoscale materials like Nanoparticles (NP’s) have already been widely studied by the researchers throughout the world, because of their exclusive physicochemical properties. Understanding the interaction of NP’s in biological system gives new dimensions to the researchers for their better and diversified use. Recently, mesoporous materials have attracted a lot of attention of researchers for their synthesis and functional mechanism [1-6]. Mesoporous materials are widely used in heterogeneous catalytic, environmental, sensory and electronic media due to their controllable and monodispersive nature of large number of accessible pores, high surface area and periodic nano-scale pore spacing forming cavities all around. Zinc oxide is another unique nanomaterial having excellent chemical and optoelectronic properties that define its significant role in areas of science and technology such as ultraviolet lasers and diodes, fluorescent labels in medicine and biology, hydrogen storage, field emitters, piezoelectric devices and photocatalysts [7-11]. The interactions of nanoparticles with biological systems are very attractive. Many studies have shown their effective role in treatment of deadly diseases like Tuberculosis and Cancer [12]. Small size and their ability to be retained in the circulation makes them very useful and revolutionary in field of medicine [9, 13-18]. Nanoparticles can be engulfed by a cell; researchers exploited this property of nanoparticles to use them in targeted drug delivery. Drug loaded nanoparticles get encapsulated by the cell and then nanoparticle degrades to release drug as per requirements. Here, we have reported results for zinc oxide prepared by chemical method and Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles (MSN) that are prepared by Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) template base catalyzed condensation technique and their interaction with E. coli cells. The materials of different sizes, morphologies and surface activities were deliberately chosen to study their interactions with E. coli bacterial cells. The nanocrystalline materials were characterized by XRD and porosity measurements. Their morphology was also studied by high resolution TEM. Their interactions with the E. coli cells were studied by Photoluminescence (PL). Abstract