Synthesis and characterization of Fe₃O₄@SiO₂@PDA@Ag core–shell nanoparticles and biological application on human lung cancer cell line and antibacterial strains

Abstract

Novel magnetic and metallic nanoparticles garner much attention of researchers due to their biological, chemical and catalytic properties in many chemical reactions. In this study, we have successfully prepared a core–shell Fe₃O₄@SiO₂@PDA nanocomposite wrapped with Ag using a simple synthesis method, characterised and tested on small cell lung cancer and antibacterial strains. Incorporating Ag in Fe₃O₄@SiO₂@PDA provides promising advantages in biomedical applications. The magnetic Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles were coated with SiO₂ to obtain negatively charged surface which is then coated with polydopamine (PDA). Then silver nanoparticles were assembled on Fe₃O₄@SiO₂@PDA surface, which results in the formation core–shell nanocomposite. The synthesised nanocomposite were characterized using SEM-EDAX, dynamic light scattering, XRD, FT-IR and TEM. In this work, we report the anticancer activity of silver nanoparticles against H1299 lung cancer cell line using MTT assay. The cytotoxicity data revealed that the IC₅₀ of Fe₃O₄@SiO₂@PDA@Ag against H1299 lung cancer nanocomposites cells was 21.52 µg/mL. Furthermore, the biological data of nanocomposites against Gram-negative ‘Pseudomonas aeruginosa’ and Gram-positive ‘Staphylococcus aureus’ were carried out. The range of minimum inhibitory concentration was found to be 115 µg/mL where gentamicin was used as a standard drug. The synthesized AgNPs proves its supremacy as an efficient biomedical agent and AgNPs may act as potential beneficial molecule in lung cancer chemoprevention and antibacterial strains.

Key Messages

1. In the present study, we have successfully prepared a core-shell Fe₃O₄@SiO₂@PDA@Ag nanocomposite.

2. We have investigated the dose-dependent cellular toxicity of silver nanocomposite in the nonsmall cell lung cancer cell line H1299 using MTT assay.

3. Also, we have evaluated the mode of cell death using apoptosis.

4. We have also evaluated the bioactivity of AgNPs on both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial cells with highly efficient antibacterial potency.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• lung cancer
• silver nanocomposite
• polydopamine
• biomedical application
• antibacterial strains
• silver nanoparticles (AgNPs)

Acknowledgements

Prof. Ramesh Chandra would like to acknowledge University of Delhi for providing support and necessary facilities to carry out research work. Snigdha Singh is grateful to DST (Indo-Russia: INT/RUS/RFBR/389) for providing the financial assistance. Tanya Goel is thankful to DST-Inspire Fellowship for their assistance. Heerak Chugh and Aarushi Singh are thankful to ICMR for providing Senior Research Fellowship.

Disclosure statement of interest

The authors declare no potential competing interest.

Data availability statement

Raw data available on request.

Author’s contribution

R.C, S.S., and T.G. contributed to the idea or design of the work. S.S, A.S., T.G. and H.C. performed the nanoparticle synthesis, characterization, analysis and interpretation of data for the work. H.C. and T.G. performed the anticancer activity and did the interpretation of the results. T.G. and M.T. did the apoptosis experiment and analysed the data. N.C. and I.R. did the antibacterial experiments and analysed the data. R.C., S.S. and M.T. supervised the project. S.S., A.S., T.G, H.C., N.C., I.R., M.T. and R.C. contributed to the drafting of the work, reviewing the intellectual content of the manuscript. All authors have agreed to the final version, helped in analysis of the data and provided critical feedbacks during the writing and revision of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

R.C. and S.S. are grateful to DST (Indo-Russia: INT/RUS/RFBR/389) for providing the financial assistance. R.C. and A.S. are grateful to ICMR-SRF (45/10/2020-Nan/BMS) for providing the fellowship.