Novel insights regarding the safety and efficacy of pyrethroid-coated nanoparticles against Hyalomma ticks

Abstract

Nanoparticles have been shown to inhibit major life cycle stages of ticks, indicative of the promising application of nanomaterials against hard ticks. The study thus probed into one of the alternative options to curtail Hyalomma by employing nanocomposites consisting of pyrethroids (cypermethrin and deltamethrin) coated nanoparticles of iron oxides and iron sulfides keeping alongside the evaluation of their toxicity through plant and mammalian cell lines. The nanoparticles used in this study were roughly spherical in morphology and exhibited various size dimensions upon characterization using SEM, EDX, and FTIR. The application of nanomaterials on female ovipositioning tick showed a decline up to 15% (females ovipositioned) in deltamethrin-coated FeO NPs, whereas this decline was up to 18% in Cyp-FeS NPs and up to 5% in Cyp-FeO NPs. Similarly, the larval hatching was also impacted, leading to a hatching percentage of 5% and only 1% by application of Cyp-FeS NPs and Cyp-FeO NPs, respectively. Similarly, the larval groups had LC₉₀ of 4.1 and 4.73 mg/L for the Cyp-FeO NPs and Cyp-FeS NPs groups. The delta-FeO NPs and delta-FeS NPs demonstrated a promising effect against adult ticks, showing LC₅₀= 3.5 mg/L, LC₉₀= 6.7 mg/L and LC₅₀= 3.8 mg/L, LC₉₀= 7.9 mg/L, respectively. MTT assay revealed that the pyrethroids coupled with iron oxide nanoparticles showed the least cytotoxicity even at the highest concentration (10^–1 µL) among other nanomaterials. The study thus concluded a safer spectrum of non-target effects of pyrethroids-coated nanomaterials in addition to their significant anti-tick activity.

Keywords:

• Ticks
• deltamethrin
• cypermethrin
• resistance
• nanoparticles
• iron oxide
• iron sulfide
• cytotoxicity

Acknowledgments

This work is a part of the doctoral thesis of Tean Zaheer. The authors acknowledge the technical support of Dr. Shanza Rauf Khan, Dr. Hassan Bin Aslam, Dr. Muhammad Muddassar, and lab staff during this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.