Evaluation of cytotoxic activity of platinum nanoparticles against normal and cancer cells and its anticancer potential through induction of apoptosis

BACKGROUND Plant mediated green synthesis of nanoparticles is an eco-friendly and efficacious approach which finds immense application in the field of medicine. This study aimed to evaluate the cytotoxicity of platinum nanoparticles (ptNPs) synthesized through green technology against normal and different cancer cell lines. METHODS Platinum nanoparticles were synthesized by green technology and characterized earlier. In this study we examined the cytotoxic effect of platinum nanoparticles (ptNPs) on human lung adenocarcinoma (A549), ovarian teratocarcinoma (PA-1), pancreatic cancer (Mia-Pa-Ca-2) cells and normal peripheral blood mononucleocyte (PBMC) cells and evaluate anticancer potential through induction of apoptosis on PA-1 cells if any. Cytotoxicity was evaluated using MTT assay, trypan blue dye exclusion assay and anticancer potential assessed through clonogenic assay, apoptosis assay, cell cycle analysis. RESULTS We found that ptNPs exerted cytotoxic effect on cancer cell lines, whereas no cytotoxic effect was observed at highest dose on normal cells. The results showed that ptNPs had potent anticancer activities against PA-1 cell line via induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. CONCLUSION Overall, these findings have proved that biosynthesized ptNPs could be potent anti-ovarian cancer drugs. Further studies are required to elucidate the molecular mechanism of ptNPs induced anti-tumor effect in vivo.