Synthesis and in vitro antineoplastic evaluation of silver nanoparticles mediated by Agrimoniae herba extract

International Journal of Nanomedicine Dovepress open access to scientific and medical research O r i g in a l R e s e a r c h International Journal of Nanomedicine downloaded from https://www.dovepress.com/ by 54.37.163.172 on 12-Jul-2018 For personal use only. Open Access Full Text Article Synthesis and in vitro antineoplastic evaluation of silver nanoparticles mediated by Agrimoniae herba extract This article was published in the following Dove Press journal: International Journal of Nanomedicine 15 April 2014 Number of times this article has been viewed Ding Qu 1,* Wenjie Sun 1,2,* Yan Chen 1,2 Jing Zhou 1 Congyan Liu 1 Key Laboratory of New Drug Delivery System of Chinese Materia Medica, Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Chinese Medicine, 2Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China 1 *These authors contributed equally to this work Introduction Correspondence: Yan Chen Key Laboratory of New Drug Delivery System of Chinese Materia Medica, Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Chinese Medicine, 100 Shizi Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210028, People’s Republic of China Tel +86 25 8560 8672 Fax +86 25 8563 7809 Email As a consequence of their unique physical and surface properties, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been shown to have a wide range of applications in the fields of catalysis, photonics, biology, pharmaceutics, and drug-delivery systems in recent years.1–4 In the clinic, AgNPs offer an alternative strategy to reverse the increasing spread of multidrug resistance resulting from the abuse of antibiotics.5–9 Notably, AgNPs have also received great attention because of their antimicrobial and anticancer activities.10–12 Owing to these distinct functions, a myriad of studies have emerged that focus on the rapid and efficient synthesis of AgNPs for incorporation into medical dressings and devices in the past few decades.13–16 Compared with some chemical and physical methods, natural systems capable of reducing silver ions and fabricating NPs at moderate conditions exhibit the promise of generating large amounts of AgNPs with limited energy input and impact on the environment.17 To date, bacteria, fungi, and plant extracts have been applied to establish silver nanosized systems, and such synthetic AgNP-preparation techniques involving the reduction of silver ions in the presence of a protective agent 1871 submit your manuscript | www.dovepress.com International Journal of Nanomedicine 2014:9 1871–1882 Dovepress © 2014 Qu et al. This work is published by Dove Medical Press Limited, and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License. The full terms of the License are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. Permissions beyond the scope of the License are administered by Dove Medical Press Limited. Information on how to request permission may be found at: http://www.dovepress.com/permissions.php http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/IJN.S58732 Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) Abstract: A rapid synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using Agrimoniae herba extract as reducing agent and stabilizer (A. herba-conjugated AgNPs [AH-AgNPs]) were designed, characterized, and evaluated for antitumor therapy feasibility. In this study, critical factors in the preparation of silver nanoparticles, including extraction time, reaction temperature, the concentration of AgNO3, and A. herba extract amount, were investigated using ultravioletvisible spectroscopy. AH-AgNPs with well-defined spherical shape, homogeneous distributional small size (30.34 nm), narrow polydispersity index (0.142), and high negative zeta potential (−36.8 mV) were observed by transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. Furthermore, the results of X-ray diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy further indicated successful preparation of AH-AgNPs. Acceptable long-term storage stability of AH-AgNPs was also confirmed. More importantly, AH-AgNPs displayed significantly higher antiproliferative effect against a human lung carcinoma cell line (A549 cells) compared with A. herba extract and bare AgNPs prepared by sodium citrate. The half-maximal inhibitory concentrations of AH-AgNPs, bare AgNPs, and A. herba extract were 38.13 µg ⋅ mL−1, 184.87 µg ⋅ mL−1, and 1.147 × 104 µg ⋅ mL−1, respectively. It is suggested that AH-AgNPs exhibit a strong antineoplastic effect on A549 cells, pointing to feasibility of antitumor treatment in the future. Keywords: rapid synthesis, Agrimoniae herba extract, silver nanoparticles, A549 cells, antitumor Dovepress International Journal of Nanomedicine downloaded from https://www.dovepress.com/ by 54.37.163.172 on 12-Jul-2018 For personal use only. Qu et al can prevent the AgNPs from aggregation and readily allow isolation of the NPs.18,19 From an economic perspective, plant extracts with various reductive groups can act as reducing and capping agents for the synthesis of NPs, which could realize more advantages over microbial synthesis in industrial production by way of cost reduction.14,15 Furthermore, natural component-mediated AgNPs utilizing reductive and pharmacological active plant extracts can integrate the advantages of bioactive components and AgNPs,20 which also displayed less toxicity against mammalian health cells.21 A number of plants are suitable for the preparation of AgNPs. For example, some reductive plants, including Aloe vera,22 Manilkara zapota,23 and Alternanthera sessilis,24 have been used for the synthesis of AgNPs with stable structure and uniform distribution. Theoretically, Agrimoniae herba contains various reductive groups, including flavonoids, phenols, and tannin, which are capable of reducing Ag+ to AgNPs through specific technology. As a famous traditional herbal medicine, A. herba containing various active components is widely used in anticancer,25 antibacterial,26 and antiinflammatory27 treatment. Herein, the traditional herbal medicine A. herba extract was utilized to develop a rapid synthesis of AgNPs for in vitro antineoplastic evaluation. In this study, we investigated the influence of various reaction conditions, such as extraction time, temperature, AgNO3 concentration and A. herba extract amount, on the yield of A. herba-conjugated AgNPs (AH-AgNPs) by monitoring the conversion of Ag+ using ultraviolet (UV)-visible spectroscopy. Furthermore, we characterized the structure and morphology of AgNPs by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). More importantly, the advantage of AH-AgNPs over A. herba extract and bare AgNPs in cytotoxicity against a human lung cancer cell line (A549 cells) was also evaluated using the 3-(4,5 (...truncated)