Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) facilitated by plant parts of Crataegus ambigua Becker AK extracts and their antibacterial, antioxidant and antimalarial activities

Abstract

In this study, we aimed to synthesize, characterize, and investigate the efficacy of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) derived from the fruit and leaf extracts of C. ambigua against free radical, bacterial strains and malarial parasites. Their antibacterial, antimalarial and antioxidant efficacy were examined by micro-dilution, parasite viability, and spectrophotometric techniques respectively. The result of characterization of the silver nanoparticles showed that biosynthesis of AgNPs was successful. FTIR analysis showed peak around 500 cm−1 ascribed to Ag-O peak for both nanoparticles. Also, spherically shaped materials from TEM images indicated that AgNPs were obtained. The AgNPs exhibited strong inhibitory activity on the seven test bacterial strains with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) ranging between 3.25 –30.00 mg mL−1 and 15.00 – 30.00 mg mL−1 on the Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains respectively. The efficacy of AgNPs to reduce 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazy (DPPH) radical to non-radical molecule (DPPH-H) was significant and the IC50 of AgNPs mediated by leaf extract was 0.21 and 0.80 mg mL−1 for the fruit silver nanoparticles. Similarly, the synthesized nanoparticles from the fruit and leaf parts of the plant showed excellent antimalarial properties with % inhibition of 100 at 20 μg mL−1 compared to the plant extract with lower % inhibition (48.5%). The AgNPs were observed to inhibit bacterial strains and have a very strong antioxidant and antimalarial activities indicating that plant parts of C. ambigua are very good precursors for non-artificial anti-microbial, antioxidant and antimalarial drugs.

Keywords

• crataegus ambigua
• nanoparticles
• antibacterial
• antioxidant
• silver nanoparticles
• antimalarial