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.