Cytotoxicity study of Piper nigrum seed mediated synthesized SnO2 nanoparticles towards colorectal (HCT116) and lung cancer (A549) cell lines

- 1st report on Piper nigrum mediated synthesis of different sized SnO2 NPs
- Showed photoluminescence and cytotoxic efficacy to HCT116 and A549 cancer cells
- SnO2 NPs are more cytotoxic to A549 compared to HCT116 cancer cells
- A potent therapeutic agent or antitumor agent towards cancer cells

Different sized tetragonal tin oxide nanoparticles (SnO2 NPs) were synthesized using Piper nigrum seed extract at three different calcination temperatures (300, 500, 900 °C) and these nanoparticles (NPs) were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry (FT-IR). The optical properties were studied using UV-Vis and photoluminescence (PL) spectrophotometers. The generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was monitored by using a fluorescence spectrophotometer and fluorescence microscope. The cytotoxicity of the synthesized SnO2 NPs was checked against the colorectal (HCT116) and lung (A549) cancer cell lines and the study results show that SnO2 NPs were toxic against cancer cell lines depending on their size and dose. IC50 values of SnO2 NPs having average particle sizes of 8.85 ± 3.5, 12.76 ± 3.9 and 29.29 ± 10.9 nm are 165, 174 and 208 μg L− 1 against HCT116, while these values are 135, 157 and 187 μg L− 1 against A549 carcinoma cell lines, respectively. The generated ROS were responsible for the cytotoxicity of SnO2 NPs to the studied cancer cells and smaller size NPs generated more ROS and hence showed higher cytotoxicity over larger size NPs. The results of this study suggest that the synthesized stable nanoparticles could be a potent therapeutic agent towards cancerous cell lines.

The synthesized SnO2 NPs using Piper nigrum exhibited a cytotoxic effect against colorectal HCT116 and lung A549 carcinoma cell lines via ROS based oxidative stress followed by mitochondrial disruption and cell death which suggests its potent therapeutic efficacy towards cancerous cell lines.134