Green Extracellular Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles by Pseudomonas alloputida, Their Growth and Biofilm-Formation Inhibitory Activities and Synergic Behavior with Three Classical Antibiotics

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is on the rise and hinders the fight against bacterial infections, which are expected to cause millions of deaths by 2050. New antibiotics are difficult to find, so alternatives are needed. One could be metal-based drugs, such as silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). In general, chemical methods for AgNPs’ production are potentially toxic, and the physical ones expensive, while green approaches are not. In this paper, we present the green synthesis of AgNPs using two Pseudomonas alloputida B003 UAM culture broths, sampled from their exponential and stationary growth phases. AgNPs were physicochemically characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), showing differential characteristics depending on the synthesis method used. Antibacterial activity was tested in three assays, and we compared the growth and biofilm-formation inhibition of six test bacteria: Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Staphylococcus epidermidis. We also monitored nanoparticles’ synergic behavior through the growth inhibition of E. coli and S. aureus by three classical antibiotics: ampicillin, nalidixic acid, and streptomycin. The results indicate that very good AgNP activity was obtained with particularly low MICs for the three tested strains of P. aeruginosa. A good synergistic effect on streptomycin activity was observed for all the nanoparticles. For ampicillin, a synergic effect was detected only against S. aureus. ROS production was found to be related to the AgNPs’ antibacterial activity.