Cytotoxic Effect of Chitosan-Gold Nanoparticles on Two Cell Lines in Culture

Abstract

Among metallic nanoparticles gold possess several unique properties. It has been argued that AuNPs have significant toxicity both in vitro and in vivo but that coating may partially prevent harmful effects. Chitosan is a natural polysaccharide derivative of chitin known to have immunoenhancing effects, antitumor, antifungal and antimicrobial activities. The aim of this study was to investigate the cytotoxic effect of chitosan-AuNPs on C26 (murine colon carcinoma) and HeLa (human cervix carcinoma) cell lines. C26 and HeLa cells were exposed to 10 and 60 nm sized chitosan-AuNPs at five different concentrations (5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 µg/ml). After 24 h of incubation, cytotoxicity was assessed by the MTT colorimetric method and IC50 values were calculated. In C26 cells 60 nm particles were more toxic than 10 nm particles. On the other hand in HeLa cells the situation was reversed and 10 nm particles had the most harmful effect at a concentration 2.5 times smaller than that of 60 nm particles. Our results could suggest that chitosan-AuNPs have an antiproliferative effect on C26 and HeLa cell lines but that this depends on cell type and is influenced by particle size and concentration.

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“…The increased activity of cascade-3 is mediated by the presence of toxic elements in cells and through granzyme B activation [51,50,26,52,49,53]. The moderate level of cytotoxicity could be due to the agglomeration of the particles as cellular uptake of nanoparticles is dependent on their size, shape, concentration, type of cell, agglomeration status and surface chemistry, as well as experimental system variables like temperature, incubation time, and culture media [30,54,55,56,57,58,59].…”

“…It's resistance to oxidation by air, moisture and soft acids as well as its biocompatible nature, makes it a suitable candidate for biological applications particularly in cell targeting, drug-delivery, biomolecular imaging, tumors detection, antimicrobial, cancer therapy, chemical and biological sensing and so on [25,27] There are prior reports that gold nanoparticles being used in chemotherapy and cancer cell diagnosis [28], in-vitro cytotoxicity assay [23] and they also act as probe for microscopic study of cancer cells [29]. The cytotoxicity and antiproliferative effect of nanoparticles depend on the cell type, particle size, and concentration as reported by Zăhan et al [30]. Priya & Iyer [29] reported a dose-dependent effect of the biosynthesized nanoparticles against MCF 7 breast cancer cell lines.…”