FUNGICIDAL POTENTIAL OF BIOSYNTHESIZED SILVER NANOPARTICLES AGAINST PHYTOPATHOGENS AND POTENTIATION OF FLUCONAZOLE

BHOLAY A.D.¹, NALAWADE P.M.², BORKHATARIA B.V.^3
1P.G. Department of Microbiology, K.T.H.M. College, Nasik- 422 002, MS, India.
²Environmental Science Research Center, K.T.H.M. College, Nasik- 422 002, MS, India.
³Curie Manavata Cancer Centre, Nasik- 422 001, MS, India.

Received : 14-09-2012     Accepted : 11-07-2013     Published : 06-08-2013
Volume : 1     Issue : 1       Pages : 12 - 15
World Res J Pharmaceut Res 1.1 (2013):12-15

Biosynthetic process which results in environmentally friendly nanoparticles of biological origin has gained importance as it does not give rise to toxic waste products. Antifungal activity of ionic or nanoparticle silver has a great potential for use in controlling fungal plant pathogens as silver may be less toxic to humans and animals than synthetic fungicides. In the present study we have demonstrated the biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles by simple bacterium Bacillus subtilis using 3.5 mM AgNO₃ solution evident from the time dependent increase in the intensity of the plasmon resonance (470 nm) in UV-Vis Spectroscopy. This method results in the formation of silver nanoparticles of size between 16-20 nm showing diffraction pattern and uniformly distributed throughout the colony of B. subtilis on agar slant evident from SEM and TEM images. Further the antifungal activity of the biosynthesized silver nanoparticles in combination with conventional antifungal agent fluconazole against various phytopathogens was investigated. The effect of fluconazole with AgNPs was significantly increased by 0.37 fold against Alternaria alternate and Fusarium oxysporum while it showed increase fold by 0.35 against Cladosporium herbarum.