biologically green synthesis of high-quality silver nanoparticles using scrophularia striata boiss plant extract and verifying their antibacterial activities

In the present work, we demonstrate a facile way to study the biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles (ag-nps) with strong bactericidal properties using an aqueous extract of scrophularia striata boiss. the bio-reduction of ag^+ ions resulted in fcc cubic structures of ag-nps with spherical shapes of about 16 nm. as a main aim of the present work, the antibacterial activity of the bio-synthesized ag-nps against gram-negative (escherichia coli and salmonella typhi atcc) and gram-positive (staphylococcus aureus and bacillus cereus) bacteria was evaluated by disk diffusion method and results were compared with those of ciprofloxacin antibiotic. interestingly the antibacterial activity of as-prepared ag-nps against all pathogenic bacteria was considerably higher than those obtained for ciprofloxacin, and also better than the recent reports on the bactericidal activity of bio-synthesized ag-nps. as a simple, cost-effective and biocompatible method, the present work proposes a facile way toward bio-synthesis of large-scale ag-nps with an excellent antibacterial activity which can be suitable for future biological applications.