Maha Abd El Fattah K, Nanis Gamal A, Fatma Ibrahim S, Gamal Mohamed ELM, Perihan Saleh A
Background/aim: The increasing number of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria and the need to synthesize new antimicrobials, nanoparticles have attracted interest in the scientific community. This study aimed to evaluate the synergistic effect of nanoparticles with some antibiotics against MDR pathogenic bacteria.
Material and methods: Seventeen bacterial isolates including; Escherichia coli (n=5) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (n=12) were collected from different clinical samples of patients suffering from burn wound and fistulae wounds infections. The susceptibility of the collected isolates to different antibiotics was investigated. Six MDR isolates were selected as representatives to different patterns were used for the determination of the antibacterial activities of two metals nanoparticles; silver (Ag-NPs) and zinc oxide (ZnO-NPs). The antibacterial activities of the synthesized nanoparticles alone and their combination with the selected antibiotics were determined against the tested isolates using disc-diffusion method according to EUCAST Clinical Breakpoint.
Results: Well dispersed spherical Ag-NPs with average particle size 12.65 ± 0.55 nm and ZnO-NPs of 7.6 ± 0.5 nm were chemically synthesized by the chemical reduction method and chemical precipitation method, respectively. The obtained results suggested that the Ag-NPs alone had higher antibacterial activity than ZnO-NPs. Furthermore, Ag-NPs show an observable synergistic effect with some antibiotics; more than ZnO-NPs.
Conclusions: It was concluded that Ag-NPs have potential as a combination therapeutic agent for the treatment of infectious diseases by bacteria.
