Nanoparticle-Associated Lipopeptides:

A New Class of Antimicrobials

26

Vivek Chauhan, Priya Gautam, and S. S. Kanwar

Abstract

Nanoparticles (NPs) are of size 1–100 nm and can be made from carbon, metal

oxides or organic matter. All NPs have ability to show distinguished physical,

biological and chemical properties at nanoscale. NPs exhibit properties like

increased reactivity, increased stability in a chemical process, enhanced mechanical

strength, dispersion, etc. These gather much attention because of their different and

interesting properties, applications and advantages over bulk counterparts. NPs have

different size, shape and structure. They can be hollow core, cylindrical, spherical,

tubular, spiral, conical, flat or even irregular. They also differ in structure which can

range from amorphous to crystalline with one or more crystals. NPs are generally

eco-friendly and non-toxic, and hence they are amenable for biomedical

applications. Lipopeptides (LPs) are amphiphilic molecules comprising of a lipid

associated with the peptide head group. These are self-get together particles which

can shape peptide-functionalized supra-atomic nanostructures. The self-get togeth-

erness of LPs encourages the introduction of peptide functionalities at exceptionally

high thickness on the outside of nanostructures, for example, fibrils, micelles and

vesicles. LPs find use in different industries most important being medicine industry

where they are used for preparation of antimicrobial drugs. LPs have shown

prominent results in cancer treatment as well. NPs are vastly used in medical

industry as a potent drug delivery system. LPs which have property of biosurfactants

have capacity to be incorporated in the NPs. Surfactin, a type of LPs, can orchestrate

both silver and gold NPs in which this surfactin lipopeptide utilized as a layout or

settling operator assumes a key job in the adjustment of the NPs. Gold NPs’ quality

is guaranteed by their stability. LPs associated with NPs (LP-NP molecule) can act

V. Chauhan · P. Gautam · S. S. Kanwar (*)

Department of Biotechnology, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India

e-mail: kanwarss2000@yahoo.com

# The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte

Ltd. 2022

R. C. Sobti, N. S. Dhalla (eds.), Biomedical Translational Research,

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-9232-1_26

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