Evaluation of antibacterial activity of zinc oxide nanoparticles and acrylamide composite against multidrug-resistant pathogenic bacteria

Emerging antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria is creating serious crises in therapeutic options for treating infections worldwide. Thus, in the quest of alternative efficacious antibacterial therapy, various previous studies have demonstrated that the coating material used for the synthesis of Zinc oxide nanoparticles has tremendously improved the antibacterial activity of nanoparticles. The aim of current study was to investigate the antibacterial activities of Zinc oxide nanoparticles and acrylamide composite (ZnO-Am-NPs) against multidrug-resistant pathogenic bacteria. Isolation and identification was performed by using standard conventional and biochemical techniques. The antimicrobial activity of ZnO-Am-NPs was determined by using modified agar well diffusion assay. The efficacy of ZnO-Am-NPs was compared with commercially available standard antibiotics discs. The data showed that ZnO-Am-NPs possessed strong antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant pathogenic bacteria including Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus, suggesting that coating of ZnO-NPs with acrylamide resulted in the broad spectrum antibacterial activity. The antibacterial activity increased with the increasing concentration of ZnO-Am-NPs whereas the minimum inhibitory concentration of ZnO-Am-NPs was recorded as 12.5µg/ml. The results of present study indicated that the ZnO-Am-NPs may serve as promising antibacterial agents against multidrug resistant and medically important bacteria. (author)