Suha T Abd, Abbas F Ali
Abstract
The potential use of zinc oxide and other metal oxide nanoparticles in biomedical are gaining interest in the scientific and medical communities, largely due to the physical and chemical properties of these nanoparticles, therefore there is an urgent need to develop new classes of antimicrobial agents, and recent studies demonstrate that hold a considerable promises. Candida albicans were isolated from saliva of forty eight volunteers of both sexes their age range between 18-22 years and then purified and diagnosed according to morphological characteristic and biochemical tests. Different concentrations of ZnO NPs were prepared from the stock solution; all the experiments were conducted in vitro. Disk diffusion method was used to study the sensitivity of Candida albicans to different concentrations of zinc oxide nanoparticles in comparison to effect of de-ionized water. Candida albicans were sensitive to all concentrations (0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.5, 1, 3 and 5.8) mg / ml of the zinc oxide nanoparticles solution in comparison to de-ionized water, revealing a highly significant difference in all concentrations. This study revealed that zinc oxide nanoparticles were effective against Candida albicans.