Platinum Nanoparticles as Potent Anticancer and Antimicrobial Agent: Green Synthesis, Physical Characterization, and In-Vitro Biological Activity

Green nanotechnology provides tools for the transformation of biological systems toward safe and cost-effective approaches of nanomaterial synthesis for biomedical applications. The aim of the current investigation was to mycosynthesis of functional platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) by Penicillium pinophilum cell-free filtrate using hydrogen hexachloroplatinate (IV) hexahydrate (H2PtCl6) as substrate. The UV-Visible spectroscopy, TEM, XRD, DLS, FTIR, TGA-DSC and GC-MS were used to characterize the mycosynthesized PtNPs. UV-visible spectrum of mycosynthesized PtNPs showed maximum absorption peak at 263 nm. The band gap energy of the PtNPs was estimated as 3.78 eV. TEM showed the PtNPs in different shapes with the size ranged from 2 to 25 nm. DLS demonstrated the size range of 2-30 nm for synthesized PtNPs. A zeta potential of - 43.0 +/- 1.0 mV with a single peak was recorded for PtNPs. The XRD peaks 40.3, 46.8 and 68.2 with the plane of platinum crystals (111), (200), and (220) were identified indicating that the PtNPs were face-centered, cubic, and crystalline in nature. Mycosynthesized PtNPs were analyzed by simultaneous TGA-DSC showed thermal stability for PtNPs. The FTIR results showed the presence of some bio-molecules in fungal cell-free filtrate as possible bio-reducing and capping agent of PtNPs. GC-MS analysis of fungal cell-free filtrate showed 10 peaks representative of related compounds. The mycosynthesized PtNPs displayed antimicrobial activity (8.1 +/- 0.8 to 24.3 +/- 0.8 mm) against various important fungal and bacteria pathogens. They were toxic for cancer cell-line HepG-2 at IC50 value of 184.07 mu g/ml. Microscopy images showed morphological changes and reduction of cancer cells populations in PtNPs-treated cell-line. Altogether, our results demonstrated for the first time the green synthesis of PtNPs using Penicillium pinophilum. Synthesized PtNPs were not only active against fungal and bacteria pathogens, but also they showed strong cytotoxic effects against human cancer cell-line HepG-2. Thus, they may be considered as promising chemotherapeutics to combat malignancies and overcome life-threatening infections arisen from multidrug resistant fungi and bacteria in practice.

Automated summary

In this study, functional platinum nanoparticles were synthesized using the cell-free filtrate of Penicillium pinophilum. The synthesized nanoparticles showed antimicrobial activity and strong cytotoxic effects against cancer cells.