Honeybee Derivatives-Based Nano-Formulations as Effective Alternatives to Control Resistant Pathogenic Microorganisms via Echo-Friendly Approach

Abstract

Bee products, for instance chitosan and propolis (Pro) and bee venom (BV), possess unique features with huge importance in various fields such as antimicrobials and food biopreservation. The worldwide increasing incidence of resistant bacterial pathogens, pose a serious threat to the health of humans. In the present investigation bees' chitosan nanoparticles (BCht), Pro and Pro-mediated AgNPs and their combination with BV have been prepared in order to assess their efficacy as antimicrobial nanocompounds to combat resistant bacterial pathogens. BCht was prepared from the bees' (Apis mellifera) corpses with the mean particle diameter of 139.85 nm. Pro was utilized for AgNPs synthesis which contained the mean diameter 6.82 nm whereas Pro-BCht-BV nanoconjugate had the average diameter 182.36 nm. All the compound/composite showed excellent antibacterial activity against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhimurium where the highest resistance was observed for S. Aureus. BCht/Pro/AgNPs was observed to be the most effective against all the studied strains. The synthesized nano-compounds/nanomaterials (BCht, Pro, Pro/AgNPs, Pro/BCht/AgNPs and BCht/BV/Pro/AgNPs) showed high performance against resistant bacterial pathogens that inhibit and kill the pathogens, where the cells were entirely killed after treatment with these compounds/composites for 10 hours as was revealed by qualitative/quantitative measurements and electron microscopy. Preparation of green nanocomposites using bees' products for the development of promising antimicrobial agents against resistant bacterial pathogens is strongly recommended.