Abstract

The nanotechnology has enabled to use very small particles of the zinc nanoparticles against most of the microbial and viral disease. The use of metal nanoparticles provides opportunity for novel antiviral therapies.
Metal may attack many targets in the viruses especially those of resistant strain. Zinc oxide nanoparticles give anti-viral activity at the early stage of viral replication as virucidal agent or an inhibitor of viral entry binding, fusion, and infectivity and inhibit post-entry stages of the virus life cycle. All these properties make the zinc oxide abroad spectrum agent. In this study the antiviral activity of different concentration of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO Np) 5-50 μm particles size, measured with electron microscope, against FMD virus on baby hamster kidney cell line where we found that concentration of 400 μm of ZnO NP has no cytotoxic effect on cell culture inducing 100% reduction in the virus titer. This finding could be in consideration as a preliminary study to further in vivo application on experimentally infected animals with FMD virus aiming to minimize the economic losses and aiding to control the disease spread.

Key words: FMD, ZnO, Nanoparticles., antiviral .