Abstract
Recent advances in the nanosciences have revolutionized the diagnosis and treatment of diseases like cancers. Arsenic(III) trioxide, best known as a toxic agent, is routinely used in treating different types of leukemia. Besides its application as a chemotherapeutic drug for treating acute promyelocytic leukemia, several attempts have been made to use arsenic trioxide (ATO) against solid tumors. This is however, restricted because of the rapid renal clearance and dose-associated side effects of ATO. This work aims to address these limitations of ATO in chemotherapy by synthesizing biocompatible human serum albumin coated arsenic trioxide nanoparticles (HSA-ATONPs) by an alkaline hydrothermal process, taking sodium arsenate as a precursor. Compared with bulk ATO, these are found to have better cytotoxicity as indicated by an in vitro study with the cancer cell line MCF7. As envisaged by transmission electron microscopy, canonical signs of apoptosis were observed in the MCF 7 cells treated with HSA-ATONPs, confirmed by Annexin V-FITC staining. The study thus, reports an augmentation of the chemotherapeutic potential of arsenic trioxide in its nanoparticulate form with its surface functionalization of human serum albumin.
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