The interaction between silver nanoparticles and herpesviruses is attracting great interest due to their antiviral activity and possibility to use as microbicides for oral and anogenital herpes. In this work, we demonstrate that tannic acid modified silver nanoparticles sized 13 nm, 33 nm and 46 nm are capable of reducing HSV-2 infectivity both in vitro and in vivo. The antiviral activity of tannic acid modified silver nanoparticles was size-related, required direct interaction and blocked virus attachment, penetration and further spread. All tested tannic acid modified silver nanoparticles reduced both infection and inflammatory reaction in the mouse model of HSV-2 infection when used at infection or for a post-infection treatment. Smaller-sized nanoparticles induced production of cytokines and chemokines important for anti-viral response. The corresponding control buffers with tannic acid showed inferior antiviral effects in vitro and were ineffective in blocking in vivo infection. Our results show that tannic acid modified silver nanoparticles are good candidates for microbicides used in treatment of herpesvirus infections.

A novel concept of nanosized fluorimetric sensors is proposed, using alternating polymers as self assembling micelles that can be crosslinked resulting in stable polymeric nanoparticles. The thus obtained nanospheres have sizes close to 250 nm or 130 nm, depending on the preparation procedure and the negative surface charge, due to the presence of carboxyl groups on the surface. By a simple procedure, the nanospheres can be effectively loaded with compounds of choice, e.g. ionophores and ion-exchangers previously used to induce ionic sensitivity in polyacrylate or poly(vinyl chloride) micro- and nanospheres (miniature optrodes), thus allowing for optical or fluorimetric quantification of analytes. As a proof of concept, H⁺ sensitive colorimetric and fluorimetric sensors and K⁺ fluorimetric sensors using classical optrode approach were prepared and tested. The obtained sensors were characterized by high sensitivity, fast and reversible responses. Both K⁺ and H⁺ sensors were characterized by a broad response range resulting from the significant effect of processes occurring on the surface of the nanospheres. Due to this effect, the fluorimetric responses of the obtained spheres are significantly different from those typically observed for miniature optrode systems, and were linear within a range of at least 5 logarithmic units of analyte concentration. As shown, the surface groups of the herein proposed nanospheres can be used for the covalent linking of fluorophores that can be used as markers (if applied alone) or as reference dyes for fluorescent ion-sensitive nanospheres.

This article describes a facile low-cost synthesis of polyaniline nanotube (PANI_NT)–carbon nano-onion (CNO) composites for solid-state supercapacitors. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) analyses indicate a uniform and ordered composition for the conducting polymer nanotubes immobilized on a thin gold film. The obtained nanocomposites exhibit a brush-like architecture with a specific capacitance of 946 F g⁻¹ at a scan rate of 1 mV s⁻¹. In addition, the nanocomposites offer high conductivity and a porous and well-developed surface area. The PANI_NT–CNO nanocomposites were tested as electrodes with high potential and long-term stability for use in easy-to-miniaturize high-performance supercapacitor devices.