Green synthesis of Moringa oleifera leaf nanoparticles and an assessment of their therapeutic potential

The present study centered around the prospect of bio fabricating nanoparticles using Moringa oleifera leaf and investigating their therapeutic potential with an assessment of the antioxidant status. Synthesis of stable 'green' nanoparticles of Moringa leaf extract is successfully reported with an extensive characterization. The average particle size and polydispersity index (PDI) of the nanoparticles obtained by Dynamic light scattering (DLS) analysis were 141.6 nm and a polydispersity index (PDI) of 0.32 respec-tively. The UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) revealed a strong red absorbance peak at 664 nm,character-istic of chlorophyll. Electron micrographs confirmed that particles were in the nano range and were spherical with minimal agglomeration. The constituent functional groups were assessed by Fourier trans-formed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The X-ray diffractograms of reflected both the amorphous and crys-talline domains.Furthermore, the phytochemical screening showed a higher phenolic/ flavonoid content of the Moringa nanoparticles (NMo) in comparison to the bulk Moringa leaf extract(Mo). These results cor-responded to a potent antioxidant status of the NMo which was assessed by three complementary antioxidant assays. The therapeutic potential of the nanoparticles was evaluated based on in vitro anti-diabetic assays and cytotoxicity assay on human cancer cell lines (MCF-7 and HepG-2). The key findings suggest a more profound therapeutic efficacy of NMo than the Moringa leaf extract. (c) 2023 The Author(s). 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

The present study successfully synthesized stable 'green' nanoparticles of Moringa oleifera leaf extract and characterized their properties. The nanoparticles had an average particle size of 141.6 nm and a polydispersity index (PDI) of 0.32. They exhibited strong absorbance at 664 nm, indicating the presence of chlorophyll. The nanoparticles showed potent antioxidant activity and a higher phenolic/flavonoid content compared to the bulk leaf extract. Furthermore, they demonstrated greater therapeutic efficacy in anti-diabetic and cytotoxicity assays on human cancer cell lines.