Sustainable biosynthesized bimetallic ZnO@SeO nanoparticles from pomegranate peel extracts: antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer activities

Amr H Hashem; Abdulaziz A Al-Askar; Mohammad Reza Saeb; Kamel A Abd-Elsalam; Ahmad S El-Hawary; Mohamed S Hasanin

doi:10.1039/d3ra03260d

Sustainable biosynthesized bimetallic ZnO@SeO nanoparticles from pomegranate peel extracts: antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer activities

RSC Adv. 2023 Jul 28;13(33):22918-22927. doi: 10.1039/d3ra03260d. eCollection 2023 Jul 26.

Authors

Amr H Hashem¹, Abdulaziz A Al-Askar², Mohammad Reza Saeb³, Kamel A Abd-Elsalam⁴, Ahmad S El-Hawary¹, Mohamed S Hasanin⁵

Affiliations

¹ Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University Cairo 11884 Egypt amr.hosny86@azhar.edu.eg.
² Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, King Saud University P.O. Box 2455 Riyadh 11451 Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Polymer Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdańsk University of Technology Narutowicza 11/12 Gdańsk Poland.
⁴ Plant Pathology Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center Giza 12619 Egypt.
⁵ Cellulose & Paper Department, National Research Centre El-Buhouth St. Dokki 12622 Egypt sido_sci@yahoo.com.

Abstract

Sustainable bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) have attracted particular attention in the past decade. However, the efficiency and environmental concerns are associated with their synthesis and properties optimization. We report herein biosynthesis of bimetallic ZnO@SeO NPs based on green and ecofriendly methods using pomegranate peel extract (PPE). Pyrochemical ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy as well as TEM and EDX supported successful synthesis. Antibacterial, antifungal, and cytotoxic activities were indicative of biological worth of sustainable bimetallic ZnO@SeO NPs, exhibiting antibacterial activity compared to monometallic ZnO and SeO NPs. The values of Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of bimetallic ZnO@SeO NPs toward E. coli, P. aeruginosa, B. subtilis and S. aureus were 3.9, 15.62, 3.9 and 7.81 μg ml^-1, respectively. Likewise, a promising antifungal activity against Candida albicans, Aspergillus flavus, A. niger and A. fumigatus was achieved (MICs: 31.25, 1.95, 15.62 and 15.62 μg ml^-1, respectively). The cytotoxicity results suggest that bimetallic ZnO@SeO NPs are non-toxic and biomedically safe, evidenced by in vitro anticancer activity against human liver carcinoma (Hep-G2) cell line (with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) > 71 μg ml^-1). The bimetallic ZnO@SeO NPs successfully biosynthesized using PPE showed a high potential for biomedical engineering.