Utilization of biological waste materials in the biosynthesis of Gold nanoparticles
Jayanta Kumar Patra*, Gitishree Das
Research Institute of Integrative Life Sciences, Dongguk University-Seoul, Goyang-si, Republic of Korea
Silk is a fiber produced by insects including the silkworm called, Bombyx mori. Silk is basically made up of two types of proteins: fibroin and sericin. Among these, the fibroin which covers 70-80% of the silk cocoon is usually used for the manufacture of silk, whereas, the sericin which covers around 20-30 %, is usually discarded in the manufacturing process and is a complete waste by the silk industries. However, it is found that sericin has numerous applications in the field of pharmaceutical, biomedical, cosmetic, and food industries. Considering the enormous potential of the sericin-based materials, in the present investigation, an attempt has been made to extract sericin from the silk cocoon, purify it and use it in the synthesis of gold nanoparticles for its future applications in food, cosmetics, and biomedical fields. The sericin was extracted from the silk cocoon by the degumming method. The protein concentration of the extracted sericin sample was estimated. And this crude sericin solution at different dilutions was sued for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles. The protein concentration of the crude sericin was found to be 3.60 % (W/V). After synthesis, the sericin-based gold nanoparticles were characterized using various characterization techniques such as UV-Vis spectroscopy, Transmission electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering zeta potential, Atomic Force Microscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. After characterization, the synthesized NPs were subjected to various bio-potential studies such as antibacterial effects against a series of Gram-positive and Gram-negative foodborne pathogenic bacteria.
Keywords: Gold nanoparticles, Silk cocoon; Sericin; antibacterial
Acknowledgment: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2020R1G1A1004667), the Republic of Korea.
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