Antibacterial efficacy of novel bismuth-silver nanoparticles synthesis on and infection models.

Introduction: The emergence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria is one of the main concerns in the health sector worldwide. The conventional strategies for treatment and prophylaxis against microbial infections include the use of antibiotics. However, these drugs are failing due to the increasing antimicrobial resistance. The unavailability of effective antibiotics highlights the need to discover effective alternatives to combat bacterial infections. One option is the use of metallic nanoparticles, which are toxic to some microorganisms due to their nanometric size.

Methods: In this study we (1) synthesize and characterize bismuth and silver nanoparticles, (2) evaluate the antibacterial activity of NPs against and in several infection models ( models: infected wound and sepsis and model: mastitis), and we (3) determine the cytotoxic effect on several cell lines representative of the skin tissue.

Results And Discussion: We obtained bimetallic nanoparticles of bismuth and silver in a stable aqueous solution from a single reaction by chemical synthesis. These nanoparticles show antibacterial activity on and without cytotoxic effects on fibroblast, endothelial vascular, and mammary epithelium cell lines. In an infected-wound mice model, antibacterial effect was observed, without effect on mastitis and sepsis models.