Toxicity of lanthanum oxide nanoparticles to the fungus Moniliella wahieum Y12T isolated from biodiesel

Moniliella wahieum Y12T, isolated from biodiesel was used as a model organism to assess the use of lanthanum oxide (La2O3) (60–80 nm) and silver oxide (AgO) (10–40 nm) nanoparticles as potential fungal inhibitors. This is the first study to investigate the use of nanoscale La2O3 as a eukaryotic bio-inhibitor. The AgO nanoparticles were relatively effective at inhibiting the growth of M. wahieum Y12T. The half maximal effective concentration (EC50) for AgO was 0.012 mg/mL as compared with 4.63 mg/mL of La2O3. Fluorescein diacetate analysis showed that AgO nanoparticles significantly reduced metabolic activity in M. wahieum Y12T. The results of this study indicated that AgO nanoparticles can be a nonspecific inhibitor for the treatment of M. wahieum Y12T, a eukaryotic biodiesel contaminant.