Antioxidant Silver-based Biogenic Systems Generated from Arctium lappa Leaves

Abstract

This work aims at designing through a �green� bottom-up strategy, four types of bio-based systems containing artificial cell membranes (with or without vitamin C) and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) phyto-generated from aqueous extract of Arctium lappa leaves. The �green� approaches for AgNP synthesis, by using the vast bioreducing potential of plants are low-cost and eco-friendly procedures.Exploiting vegetal wastes as precursors for phyto-metallic nanoparticles has received attention from scientific community in the last years due to its significant economic and environmental impacts. UV-Vis absorption spectra demonstrated the biosynthesis of metallic nanoparticles which exhibited a strong SPR peak located at 437 nm wavelengths. The formation of the biocomposites containing the �green� synthesized AgNPs has been demonstrated by UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy and Dynamic Light Scattering measurements. DLS results highlighted the nanoscale size of the prepared �green� AgNPs. The physical stability of the obtained silver-based systems was evaluated through zeta potential values, based on electrophoretic mobility. The systems loaded with vitamin C proved to be more stable and showed enhanced antioxidant activities (between 72.3% to 88% evaluated by chemiluminescence technique). Our results demonstrated that these developed silver-based biogenic systems generated from Arctium lappa leaves could be used as antioxidant agents in various biomedical applications.