Comparative study of antibacterial, cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of synthesized silver nanoparticles using Asparagus khorasanesis extract and commercial silver nanoparticles

Recently, metal nanoparticles, especially silver nanoparticles, are important in the medical and therapeutic applications. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial, cytotoxic and apoptotic effects of synthesized and commercial silver nanoparticles.

In this experimental study, silver nanoparticles were synthesized using Asparagus khorasanesis extract. Its physical-chemical properties were investigated by UV-vis spectroscopy, TEM, SEM and FTIR. The antimicrobial activity of synthesized and commercial silver nanoparticles were evaluated by minimum inhibitory concentration method (MIC). In addition, their cytotoxic and apoptotic effects on breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) was performed using MTT and flow cytometric methods, respectively at concentrations of 125.3 to 100 μg/mL.

The synthesized silver nanoparticles showed an absorbance peak of 420 nm in UV-vis. The results of SEM, TEM and FTIR showed that the synthesized silver nanoparticles had a spherical structure with a mean size of 12.96 nm. The MIC results showed that synthesized silver nanoparticles had more significant antimicrobial effects in comparison of commercial silver nanoparticles. Moreover, the MTT and flow cytometric results showed that synthesized silver nanoparticles in 50 and 100 μg /ml concentration exhibited more cytotoxic and apoptotic properties than commercial silver nanoparticles.

The results of this study showed that the synthesized silver nanoparticles have significantly biological effects more than commercial silver nanoparticles, and therefore these nanoparticles can be considered as drug candidates.