The present study is focused on the determination the influence of cobalt content in the magnetic cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (Nps) on their antibacterial efficiency against gram-negative Escherichia coli and gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus bacteria and several Candida species, in particular C. parapsilosis and C. albicans. For the synthesis of Fe(II) substituted cobalt ferrite Nps by co-precipitation way, the L-lysine was used as the capping biocompatible agent and the particle size was successfully controlled to be in the range of 5-6.4 nm. The antimicrobial efficiencies of the CoxFe1-xFe2O4@Lys Nps, where x varies from 0.2 to 1.0, were evaluated through the quantitative analysis by comparing with that of Fe3O4@Lys Nps and L-lysine. In this way, it was evidenced that increase in the Co2+ content in the similar sized cobalt ferrite Nps resulted in an increase in their antimicrobial potency into 93.1-86.3 % for eukaryotic and into 96.4-42.7 % for prokaryotic strains. For characterization the composition, structure, and morphology of the tested herein Nps inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, X-ray diffraction, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, Mossbauer, and FTIR spectroscopy techniques were conferred. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.