Nanoparticles: Characters, applications, and synthesis by endophytes

Endophytes, a group of microbes residing within different parts of the plant are gaining special importance with the recent studies. The analyses of endophytes have shown them to be more efficacious than epiphytes or herbal plant extracts in terms of their medicinal properties. Besides, endophytic extracts have also been shown to be effective agents for nanoparticle synthesis offering various advantages over chemical synthesis. Nanoparticle have multiple applications in drug delivery, imaging, biosensing, bioremediation, and many more and thus their analysis appears to be the need of the hour. The synthesized nanoparticles have been characterized by standard methods including DLS, FTIR, UV–Vis spectroscopy, SEM, and TEM. The nanoparticles synthesized by this method are uniform in size and shape and are stable for use. These nanoparticles have shown to possess antimicrobial, anticancer, antioxidant as well as antidiabetic activities. Therefore, this chapter describes the role of endophytes in nanobiotechnology.