Selective Synthesis of Cu2O and Cu/Cu2O NPs: Antifungal Activity to Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and DNA Interaction

A facile selective synthesis of Cu2O and heterogeneous Cu/Cu2O nanoparticles (NPs) was achieved through a solvothermal approach by Cu(NO3)2 in proportion of three different surfactants, namely, tetraethylene glycol (TEG), oleylamine (OAm) and polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan laurate (Tween 20). Formation aspects for the spherical Cu2O@OAm (30 nm) and Cu2O@Tween (12 nm) as well as for the core–shell and semishell Cu/Cu2O@TEG NPs (7 nm) and the Cu/Cu2O@OAm (170 nm) nanorods have been proposed. The fungistatic and fungicidal activity of the newly synthesized NPs was studied in vitro against the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which constitutes a unicellular eukaryotic model microorganism in molecular and cell biology. The antifungal results, based on optical density and fluorescence measurements, clearly indicate that the composition, size, and amount of surfactant are of key importance in the antifungal properties of the NPs. Cu2O@OAm NPs exhibited the most prominent antifungal activity with 3.73 μg/mL IC50via...