Food Marketing & Technology India – July 2019

Food Marketing & Technology 50 July 2019

Packaging

Mechanism of action of nanomaterials as

antimicrobials in food packaging.

The exact mode of action of nanoparticles in packaging is not

understood completely. Nanoparticles tend to attach to the

bacterial cell membrane via electrostatic interaction, which

there by disrupts the integrity of bacterial membrane. There

are two possible pathways, which show the antibacterial

activity of nanoparticles (Figure 1).

1. Disruption in cell
   membrane integrity.
   Nanoparticles binds to the cell membrane of the bacterial
   electrostatically there by bringing the damage; this further
   leads to depolarization of membrane, loss of membrane
   integrity. This further induces cell death due to loss of
   energy transduction, impaired respiration and unbalanced
   translocation of the materials (Beyth et al., 2015)


2. Formation of Reactive
   Oxygen Species (ROS)
   Production of ROS is the primary reason for nanoparticle
   toxicity against the microbial cell functioning. When
   nanoparticles produce ROS, which exceeds the cellular
   antioxidant defense system, it causes oxidative stress; this
   in turn causes lipid peroxidation, thereby disrupting the cell
   membrane and finally leading to cell death.

Nanoparticles Polymer matrix Tested Microorganism References

Silver (Ag)/Chitosan Polylactic acid Staphylococcus aureus

Escherichia coli

Turalija et al. (2016)

Silver (Ag) Agar Banana Powder Listeria monocytogens

Escherichia coli

Orsuwan et al. (2016)

Zinc Oxide (ZnO)/Ag/Cu PLA, Polyethylene glycol

(PEG)

Listeria monocytogens

Salmonella typhymurium

Ahmed et al. (2016)

Ag Poly Ethylene (PE) Escherichia coli Eslami et al. (2016)

Ag/Cu Guar gum Listeria monocytogens

Salmonella typhymurium

Arfat et al. (2017a)

Ag/TiO2 PE Aspergillus flavus Li et al. (2017)

Ag/Cu Fish Skin Gelatin Listeria monocytogens

Salmonella typhymurium

Arfat et al. (2017b)

Ag Starch Listeria inocula

Aspergillus niger

Escherichia coli

Penicillium expansum

Cano et al. (2016)

ZnO Low Density Poly Ethylene

(LDPE)

Bacillus subtilis

Enterobacter aerogenes

Esmailzadeh et al. (2016)

Zno Methyl cellulose Staphylococcus aureus

Listeria monocytogens

Espitia et al. (2012)

Nanoclay Chitosan Escherichia coli Giannakas et al. (2016)

Table 1: Antimicrobial packaging system with different nanoparticles.

Figure 1: Antibacterial properties of nanoparticles (Source:

Hajipour et al., 2012)