Nano solutions are widely used in medicine and also have the potential to be used when performing allelopathy screening studies. The present experiment aimed to test the effectiveness of colloidal nano silver Silver-Amber© with nanoparticles of 20 nm (>20 mg/L at a purity level of 99.99%) as a carrier of allelochemicals in laboratory conditions. The influence of eleven concentrations of Silver-Amber© (0.10, 0.20, 0.39, 0.78, 1.56, 3.13, 6.25, 12.5, 25.0, 50.0 and 100.0% v/v) on the germination and initial development of test plant Lactuca sativa L. in 0.75% agar medium was studied. Data revealed that when increasing the quantitative ratio of Silver-Amber©, an inhibitory effect on seed germination (from 37.8 to 94.3%) and on the plant growth (from 54.0 to 98.9%) appeared. Lower concentrations (0.63 to 0.04 ppm) had an indifferent to statistically unproven stimulatory effect on the germination and initial development of L. sativa (GI ranged from 88.7-94.6%). Therefore, nano silver can be used as carrier of allelochemicals in allelopathic studies in laboratory conditions.

Nanotechnology has the potential to offer elegant solutions to problems experienced in the medical field, such as poor drug delivery efficiency and microbial resistance. In this sense, it is interesting to associate nanomaterials with substances that also offer desirable properties to favor human health. Green propolis is an example of a material that contains some of these useful substances. The phenolic acids present in this type of propolis have already been proven to present, for example, antimicrobial, immunostimulant, and antioxidant activities. In this minireview, recent nano solutions, presented through manuscripts have been recently published based on green propolis, receive attention due to their useful properties in the medical field. Limitations to the clinical use of nanomaterials and the future prospects are also addressed.