Synthesis, characterisation and pharmacological assessment of nanoparticles of Tinospora cordifolia for its cytotoxic activity

Abstract

The present study was taken up to evaluate the use of Tinospora cordifolia stem extract as a reducing agent for silver nanoparticle formation and characterization of the synthesized nanoparticles and assessment of its cytotoxic effect on the HepG2 cancer cell line. Silver nanoparticles were synthesized and characterized by visualizing the colour change, observing for the concentric rings under an optical microscope, analyzing the particle size and measuring the zeta potential. The extract was also phytochemically characterized and subjected to MTT assay to evaluate its cytotoxic activity at three different doses of 200 µg/ml, 400 µg/ml and 600 µg/ml against a negative control and a positive control 5-Flurouracil 5 µg/ml. The synthesized nanoparticles were confirmed by visualizing the colour change from colourless to slight reddish brown colour, observing concentric rings under optical microscope, determining the particle size in the range of 0.4 nm and zeta potential was measured to be -13.4mv with peak area of 100 percentage intensity. Phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of saponin, terpenoids, flavanoids, hydrolysable tannin, glycosides and cardiac glycosides in the aqueous extract. The cytotoxicity assay revealed a dose dependent significant decrease in the percentage inhibition of growth of cells with the highest level of inhibition noticed at the highest dose similar to positive control group. Thus the cytotoxic effect of the extract could be attributed to the presence of the secondary metabolites in them which could get converted into nanoparticles with silver and establishes its potential as a chemotherapeutic option for cancer.