Research Article
Koushik Mukherjee and Alok
Abstract
Current situation demands more biocompatible and non-toxic nanostructures. Towards this the present study describes the synthesis of gold nanoparticle by direct reduction of tetrachloroauric acid with both D- and L-enantiomeric forms of the amino acid serine. The formation of nanoparticle was confirmed by examining different physical characteristics like surface plasmon resonance. Moreover, the retention of chirality of the reduced particle was also evident from circular dichroism spectroscopy experiment. In addition, the shielding of the nanoparticle by respective amino acid was confirmed by Scanning Electron Microscope and Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (SEM-EDAX). As D-serine is known to be active against Mycobacteria, examination of the biological activity of the D-serine protected particle was performed against the same. The result showed higher inhibitory activity of the particle against Mycobacterium smegmatis than D-serine alone. Thus the present study describes a new protocol for the synthesis of chiral gold nanoparticle that can be beneficial in enantioselective biological applications.