Take a nanoparticles treated fabric and cut it into 50 millimeters by 25 millimeter swatches. Inoculate the microbial cultures from fresh purity plates to Trypticase soy broth at 35 degrees Celsius overnight with moderate shaking. Dilute the overnight cultures to 150 million CFU per milliliter, or corresponding to the turbidity of 0.5 McFarland standard.
To inoculate the diluted culture with a four millimeter sterile loop, load a loop full of broth culture and transfer it to the surface of the Mueller-Hinton agar or MHA agar plate by making five parallel streaks of six centimeters in length and one centimeter apart from each other. Gently press the fabric swatch using a sterile spatula across the five streaks so that the fabric is in the center and touches all five streak lines. Incubate at 35 degrees Celsius for 24 hours.
For the qualitative evaluation of antimicrobial efficacy, examine the incubated plate for the interruption of growth along the streaks beyond the edges of the fabric. Calculate the average width of a zone of inhibition along the streak line W on either side of the fabric swatch using the equation shown on the screen. The results of the parallel streak method are presented in this figure, the untreated fabric and the thymol nanoparticles coated fabric against S-aureus and the untreated fabric and the thymol nanoparticles coated fabric against C-Albicans are shown here.
These results show clear zones for the treated fabric swatches.
