Biological synthesis of gold nanoparticles using endophytic fungi

Abstract

The myriad uses of gold nanoparticles in the field of medicine have forwarded research to find the best possible way to synthesize them with better size manipulation. Biological synthesis of nanoparticles has attracted lot of attention in the recent past as this offers a convenient procedure of synthesizing them in a green and facile manner. In the present study, the less explored endophytic fungi were employed in the synthesis of gold nanoparticles. Extracellular gold nanoparticle formation was observed by the change in colour of the solution to dark pink. This was followed by characterizing the nanoparticles using various instrumental analyses like UV-Vis spectroscopy, TEM and FTIR. The obtained gold nanoparticles were found to be spherical with slight aggregation and their size was found to be in the range of 15 - 35 nm. Their biocompatibility has been assessed using cytotoxicity assay and the results have shown that these biogenic gold nanoparticles do not induce significant cytotoxicity in normal and cancer cell lines. This study highlights the use of endophytic fungi as potential synthesizers of biocompatible gold nanoparticles in a benign fashion.