Metal-Based Nanoparticles as Antimicrobial Agents: An Overview

Metal-based nanoparticles have been extensively investigated for a set of biomedical applications. According to the World Health Organization, in addition to their reduced size and selectivity for bacteria, metal-based nanoparticles have also proved to be effective against pathogens listed as a priority. Metal-based nanoparticles are known to have non-specific bacterial toxicity mechanisms (they do not bind to a specific receptor in the bacterial cell) which not only makes the development of resistance by bacteria difficult, but also broadens the spectrum of antibacterial activity. As a result, a large majority of metal-based nanoparticles efficacy studies performed so far have shown promising results in both…