Studies on drug-assisted silver nanoparticles to reduce granulocytopenia and improve drug delivery for cancer therapy

Abstract

Chemotherapy is accompanied by suppression of the immune system of a patient, which is usually handled through the judicial use of antibiotic therapy. Through clinical conditions like granulocytopenia, antibiotic treatment is given along with chemotherapeutic drugs. Granulocytopenic infection, which is associated with three bacteria, i.e., Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, causes the granulocyte count to fall below 500/mm3, thereby causing complications and resulting in the death of cancer patients. In this study, one-pot synthesis is used to incorporate the anticancer and antibiotic drugs into silver nanoparticles by using a chemical reduction method. The morphological data indicate the size of ampicillin-mediated silver nanoparticles (i.e., Amp-Ag NPs) as ~ 25 nm, which further, after adding paclitaxel (i.e., AT-Ag NPs) in the reaction mixture, increase to ~ 42 nm. The antimicrobial studies of synthesized NPs show a synergistic effect toward the infection-causing bacteria. Imaging studies represent the accumulation of nanoparticles and pores formation into the bacterial membrane. Biological assay and apoptosis assay predict the positive efficacy of paclitaxel, keeping the therapy intact. Hence, the robust drug delivery system in cancer therapy with minimal side effects and improved antimicrobial and anticancer activity is proposed.