Tyrosine assisted size controlled synthesis of silver nanoparticles and their catalytic, in-vitro cytotoxicity evaluation

•Tyrosine induced size controllable synthesis of AgNPs.•Effect of pH of tyrosine on mechanism of size tuning.•Size and dose dependent cytotoxicity towards 3T3 cells.•Size dependent catalytic activity of AgNPs.

A simple, green approach for the size controllable preparation of silver nanoparticles (SNPs) using tyrosine as reducing and capping agent is shown here. The size of SNPs is controlled by varying the pH of tyrosine solution. The as synthesized SNPs are characterized by using XRD, UV-Visible, DLS, TEM and SAED. Zeta potential measurements revealed the stability of tyrosine capped silver nanocolloids. Furthermore, catalytic activity studies concluded that the smaller SNPs acts as good catalyst and the catalytic activity depends on size of the nanoparticles. Further, the in-vitro cytotoxicity experiments concluded that the cytotoxicity of the prepared SNPs towards mouse fibroblast (3T3) cell lines is size and dose dependent. Additionally, the present approach is substitute to the traditional methods that are being used now-a-days for size controlled synthesis of SNPs.

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