A Comparative Study of Cancer Cells Susceptibility to Silver Nanoparticles Produced by Electron Beam

Evgenii V Plotnikov; Maria S Tretayakova; Diana Garibo-Ruíz; Ana G Rodríguez-Hernández; Alexey N Pestryakov; Yanis Toledano-Magaña; Nina Bogdanchikova

doi:10.3390/pharmaceutics15030962

A Comparative Study of Cancer Cells Susceptibility to Silver Nanoparticles Produced by Electron Beam

Pharmaceutics. 2023 Mar 16;15(3):962. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics15030962.

Authors

Evgenii V Plotnikov^{1

2}, Maria S Tretayakova^{1

3}, Diana Garibo-Ruíz⁴, Ana G Rodríguez-Hernández⁴, Alexey N Pestryakov¹, Yanis Toledano-Magaña⁵, Nina Bogdanchikova⁴

Affiliations

¹ Research School of Chemistry & Applied Biomedical Sciences, Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk 634050, Russia.
² Mental Health Research Institute, Tomsk National Research Medical Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Tomsk 634014, Russia.
³ Cancer Research Institute, Tomsk National Research Medical Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Tomsk 634009, Russia.
⁴ Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Center (CNyN), Campus Ensenada, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City 04510, Mexico.
⁵ Escuela de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Ensenada 22890, Mexico.

Abstract

Introduction: Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have a wide range of bioactivity, which is highly dependent on particle size, shape, stabilizer, and production method. Here, we present the results of studies of AgNPs cytotoxic properties obtained by irradiation treatment of silver nitrate solution and various stabilizers by accelerating electron beam in a liquid medium.

Methods: The results of studies of morphological characteristics of silver nanoparticles were obtained by transmission electron microscopy, UV-vis spectroscopy, and dynamic light scattering measurements. MTT test, alamar blue test, flow cytometry, and fluorescence microscopy were used to study the anti-cancer properties. As biological objects for standard tests, adhesive and suspension cell cultures of normal and tumor origin, including prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, neuroblastoma, and leukemia, were studied.

Results: The results showed that the silver nanoparticles obtained by irradiation with polyvinylpyrrolidone and collagen hydrolysate are stable in solutions. Samples with different stabilizers were characterized by a wide average size distribution from 2 to 50 nm and low zeta potential from -7.3 to +12.4 mV. All AgNPs formulations showed a dose-dependent cytotoxic effect on tumor cells. It has been established that the particles obtained with the combination of polyvinylpyrrolidone/collagen hydrolysate have a relatively more pronounced cytotoxic effect in comparison to samples stabilized with only collagen or only polyvinylpyrrolidone. The minimum inhibitory concentrations for nanoparticles were less than 1 μg/mL for various types of tumor cells. It was found that neuroblastoma (SH-SY5Y) is the most susceptible, and ovarian cancer (SKOV-3) is the most resistant to the action of silver nanoparticles. The activity of the AgNPs formulation prepared with a mixture of PVP and PH studied in this work was higher that activity of other AgNPs formulations reported in the literature by about 50 times.

Conclusions: The results indicate that the AgNPs formulations synthesized with an electron beam and stabilized with polyvinylpyrrolidone and protein hydrolysate deserve deep study for their further use in selective cancer treatment without harming healthy cells in the patient organism.

Keywords: anticancer agent; cytotoxicity; electron beam; silver nanoparticles; tumor cells.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Russian Science Foundation and Tomsk region grant 22-13-20032. D. Garibo acknowledges the “Investigadoras e investigadores por México” CONACyT program (Project Number: 1073).