Optimization and evaluation of anticancer, antifungal, catalytic, and antibacterial activities: Biosynthesis of spherical-shaped gold nanoparticles using Pistacia vera hull extract (AuNPs@PV)

In the past years, use of plant sources for the biosynthesis of nanoparticles has become very important. Gold nanoparticles with unique biological properties are one of these materials which are being investigated extensively. In the present study, the aqueous extract of Pistacia vera hull was utilized to fabrication of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs@PV) in a facile, environmentally friendly, and affordable way. Then the anticancer, antifungal, antibacterial, and photocatalytic potentials of AuNPs@PV were also investigated. The results of various techniques applied, including XRD, UV-vis, TEM, FT-IR, EDS, and FESEM showed the biological reduction of Au3+ ions to Au0. Antibacterial studies were performed on a wide range of bacteria including seven strains of ATCC and seven strains of drug-resistant pathogens. According to the findings of this research, it seems that biosynthesized gold nanoparticles had good antibacterial activity against ATCC and drug-resistant strains of bacteria. The MIC values of E. coli, S. aureus, P. mirabilis, P. aeruginosa, E. faecalis, K. pneumonia, A. baumannii were 34.37, 4.2, 8.59, 4.29, 0.5, 34.37, and 8.59 lg/mL, respectively. The result of the antifungal investigation showed that two pathogenic fungi, Candida albicans (IFRC1873) and Candida albicans (IFRC1874) were susceptible to AuNPs@PV with MIC values of 550 and 137 lg/mL, respectively. Furthermore, AuNPs@PV revealed noteworthy anti-cancer efficacy against AGS-3 and MCF-7 cell lines with IC50 values of 58.31 and 148.1 lg/mL, respectively. The results of the cytotoxicity effect of AuNPs@PV on BEAS-2B as a normal cell line indicated the selectivity of AuNPs@PV on cancerous cells. Furthermore, the fabricated AuNPs@PV under UV irradiation exhibited significant potential in the decolorization of methylene orange (MO) with a percent decolorization of 91.5 % after 20 min. Therefore, it can be concluded that biosynthesized gold nanoparticles as a photocatalyst, anti-bacterial, antifungal, and anti-cancer agents have potential applications in the fields of environment and biology. & COPY; 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

In recent years, the use of plant sources for synthesizing nanoparticles has been important, particularly gold nanoparticles which possess unique biological properties. This study utilized the aqueous extract of Pistacia vera hull to fabricate gold nanoparticles (AuNPs@PV) in an easy, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective manner, and evaluated their anticancer, antifungal, antibacterial, and photocatalytic potentials. The results showed successful biological reduction of Au3+ ions to Au0 nanoparticles. Antibacterial studies demonstrated that the biosynthesized gold nanoparticles exhibited good antibacterial activity against a wide range of bacteria, including drug-resistant strains. The antifungal investigation revealed susceptibility of pathogenic fungi to AuNPs@PV, and the nanoparticles exhibited significant anti-cancer efficacy against specific cell lines. Moreover, AuNPs@PV demonstrated noteworthy photocatalytic activity in the decolorization of methylene orange. Therefore, biosynthesized gold nanoparticles have potential applications in environmental and biological fields as photocatalysts, antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-cancer agents.