Actinobacteria mediated synthesis of nanoparticles and their biological properties: A review

Abstract

Nanotechnology is gaining tremendous attention in the present century due to its expected impact on many important areas such as medicine, energy, electronics, and space industries. In this context, actinobacterial biosynthesis of nanoparticles is a reliable, eco-friendly, and important aspect of green chemistry approach that interconnects microbial biotechnology and nanobiotechnology. Antibiotics produced by actinobacteria are popular in almost all the therapeutic measures and it is known that these microbes are also helpful in the biosynthesis of nanoparticles with good surface and size characteristics. In fact, actinobacteria are efficient producers of nanoparticles that show a range of biological properties, namely, antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer, anti-biofouling, anti-malarial, anti-parasitic, antioxidant, etc. This review describes the potential use of the actinobacteria as the novel sources for the biosynthesis of nanoparticles with improved biomedical applications.

• Actinobacteria
• biomedical applications
• nanoparticles
• nanotechnology

Acknowledgements

One of the authors, Kannan Sivakumar expresses his thanks to the Dean, Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Sciences and Annamalai University authorities for facilities and encouragement. Authors also thank Prof. L. Kannan, Former Vice-chancellor of Thiruvalluvar University, for critically going through the manuscript and offering comments.

Declaration of interest

This research was supported by a grant from Marine Bioprocess Research Center of the Marine Biotechnology Program funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Republic of Korea.