Metal oxide nanoparticles in infectious disease management: Antimicrobial mechanisms, applications, and future perspectives.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the world's health concerns that has been fueled to an extent by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in human and animal medicine and agriculture, which would lead to even more severe spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens, which, in turn, would exceed all other causes of death by 2050. In the face of the rapidly declining effectiveness of conventional antibiotics, metal oxide nanoparticles (MONPs) have emerged as viable antimicrobial candidates due to their nanometer size, large surface area, and reactivity, as well as the ability to be composed in a way that can target specific diseases. MONPs exhibit a wide range of antimicrobial action by means of such processes as the induction of oxidative stress, membrane destruction, enzyme inhibition, and intracellular damage. The multi-functional features make them amenable to various biomedical applications - antimicrobial coatings, drug delivery, diagnostics, and implant materials. This review is a cumulative study of the antimicrobial properties of MONPs, the ways of their use in the management of infectious diseases, and the prospects and limitations of their clinical implementation.