Anticancer effects of biosynthesized Cu2O nanoparticles using marine yeast

Abstract

Several microorganisms were exploited as cell-factories for biogenic synthesis of different nanoparticles. Nanoparticles are recently showed effectiveness as drug-delivery systems for cancer treatment. Specially, copper nanoparticles were shown a high potency as drug delivery systems and cancer cell growth controllers. Herein, twenty marine yeast isolates were investigated for their capability to biologically synthesis cupreous oxide nanoparticles (Cu2O NPs). Based on strain identification, Rhodotorula mucilaginosa was chosen as a potent producer of Cu2O NPs using copper sulfate. The data revealed the formation of spherical shaped Cu2O NPs with an average particle size ranged in 51.6–111.4 nm. The smallest sized Cu2O NPs (51.6 nm) were obtained using 2.5 mM copper sulfate and reaction time of 24 h. The biosynthesized Cu2O NPs showed anticancer efficacy against A549, HepG2, HT-29, MCF-7, SKOV-3 and SW620. The highest cytotoxicity of Cu2O NPs was observed for colorectal cancer (HT-29). The cell viability of HT-29 was reduced from 56.3% to 21.0%, by raising the Cu2O NPs concentration from 10 μg/mL to 30 μg/mL. Against A-549 and HepG2 cells, the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) from the biosynthesized Cu2O NPs were 54.0 and 61.8 μg/mL, compared to 730 and 763.0 μg/mL from the standard drugs.