Demonstrating the Synthesis and Antibacterial Properties of Nanostructured Silver

Investigating and understanding novelantibacterial agents is anecessary task as there is a constant increase in the number of multidrug-resistantbacterial species. The use of nanotechnology to combat drug-resistantbacteria is an important research area. The laboratory experimentdescribed herein demonstrates that changes in the nanostructure ofa material lead to significantly different antibacterial efficacies.Silver has been known to be an effective antibacterial agent throughouthistory, but its therapeutic uses are limited when present as eitherthe bulk material or cations in solution. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs)and DNA-templated silver nanoclusters (DNA-AgNCs) are both nanostructuredsilver materials that show vastly different antibacterial activitieswhen incubated with E. coli in liquid culture. Thiswork aims to provide students with hands-on experience in the synthesisand characterization of nanomaterials and basic microbiology skills;moreover, it is applicable to undergraduate and graduate curricula.