Synthesis and Characterization of Silver Nanoparticles from Rhizophora apiculata and Studies on Their Wound Healing, Antioxidant, Anti-Inflammatory, and Cytotoxic Activity

Abstract

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have recently gained interest in the medical field because of their biological features. The present study aimed at screening Rhizophora apiculata secondary metabolites, quantifying their flavonoids and total phenolics content, green synthesis and characterization of R. apiculata silver nanoparticles. In addition, an assessment of in vitro cytotoxic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and wound healing activity of R. apiculata and its synthesized AgNPs was carried out. The powdered plant material (leaves) was subjected to Soxhlet extraction to obtain R. apiculata aqueous extract. The R. apiculata extract was used as a reducing agent in synthesizing AgNPs from silver nitrate. The synthesized AgNPs were characterized by UV-Vis, SEM-EDX, XRD, FTIR, particle size analyzer and zeta potential. Further aqueous leaf extract of R. apiculata and AgNPs was subjected for in vitro antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, wound healing and cytotoxic activity against A375 (Skin cancer), A549 (Lung cancer), and KB-3-1 (Oral cancer) cell lines. All experiments were repeated three times (n = 3), and the results were given as the mean ± SEM. The flavonoids and total phenolics content in R. apiculata extract were 44.18 ± 0.086 mg/g of quercetin and 53.24 ± 0.028 mg/g of gallic acid, respectively. SEM analysis revealed R. apiculata AgNPs with diameters ranging from 35 to 100 nm. XRD confirmed that the synthesized silver nanoparticles were crystalline in nature. The cytotoxicity cell viability assay revealed that the AgNPs were less toxic (IC50 105.5 µg/mL) compared to the R. apiculata extract (IC50 47.47 µg/mL) against the non-cancerous fibroblast L929 cell line. Antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cytotoxicity tests revealed that AgNPs had significantly more activity than the plant extract. The AgNPs inhibited protein denaturation by a mean percentage of 71.65%, which was equivalent to the standard anti-inflammatory medication diclofenac (94.24%). The AgNPs showed considerable cytotoxic effect, and the percentage of cell viability against skin cancer, lung cancer, and oral cancer cell lines was 31.84%, 56.09% and 22.59%, respectively. R. apiculata AgNPs demonstrated stronger cell migration and percentage of wound closure (82.79%) compared to the plant extract (75.23%). The overall results revealed that R. apiculata AgNPs exhibited potential antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, wound healing, and cytotoxic properties. In future, R. apiculata should be further explored to unmask its therapeutic potential and the mechanistic pathways of AgNPs should be studied in detail in in vivo animal models.

Optical Characteristics of Silver Nanoparticles Obtained Using Artemisia tilesii Ledeb. "Hairy" Root Extracts With High Flavonoid Content

“…The fact that the peak absorption of all the samples remained at around 440 nm is helpful for the methodology, as it allows to determine the result of the reaction making only one spectrophotometric measurement in spite of obtaining whole UV-Vis spectra. The wavelength of peak absorption at 410-460 nm is characteristic for silver nanoparticles [19,23,24], and at 425-440 nm is characteristic for silver nanoparticles synthesised using Artemisia plant extracts [36,60,61,64].…”

“…Obtaining AgNPs is of interest not only as a method and assessment of the level of reducing power, but also as an independent biotechnological process of creating a product (nanoparticles), which can find wide practical applications due to having anticancer effect, antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-hyperglycemic activity [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25], as well as anti-quorum sensing potential [26]. Advances of such "green" silver, zink, gold, platinum, nickel, aluminum and iron nanoparticles are widely researched [27][28][29][30][31][32].…”

Antioxidant and Anti-inflammatory Applications of Aerva persica Aqueous-Root Extract-Mediated Synthesis of ZnO Nanoparticles

“…After 10 min, the absorbance of the reaction mixture was taken at 230 nm using a blank solution (phosphate buffer and hydrogen peroxide free). The absorbance was taken in triplicate . Percentage inhibition was calculated by using eq .…”

Electron Beam-Supported Fabrication of Biocompatible Silver/iota-Carrageenan for Wound Healing Application

“…From MTT results, even at higher dosages of 15 mg/mL, Sb-AgNPs did not impart any adverse cytotoxic effect on murine fibroblast L929 cells. 14 Alsareii et al 15 prepared AgNPs using Rhizophora apiculata. In this study, the cell viability assay revealed that the AgNPs were less toxic (IC 50 105.5 μg/mL) compared to the R. apiculata extract (IC 50 47.47 μg/mL) against the noncancerous fibroblast L929 cell line.…”

“…AgNPs demonstrated stronger cell migration and percentage of wound closure (82.79%) compared to the plant extract (75.23%). 15 Recently, unique nanostructures and nanomaterials have been created thanks to a technique called electron beam (EB) irradiation. In general, the potent reducing species produced by radiolysis make ionizing radiation more effective for the synthesis of AgNPs than nonionizing radiation.…”