Skin lesions are caused by the interruption of their functions, causing several possibilities of injury, and affecting the patient's quality of life. Thus, an effective alternative to this problem is the application of metallic nanoparticles with considerable antimicrobial activity, such as silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). In this context, the present study aims to synthesize and characterize AgNPs from l-ascorbic acid (AA) for a possible cutaneous tissue engineering, evaluating the in vitro safety profile (VERO cells line), antimicrobial activity (Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains), genotoxicity effect and phytotoxicity (Lactuca sativa and Beta vulgaris L. seeds). The novelty of the present study consists of applying green silver nanoparticles for potential application in skin lesions, followed by the study of toxicity in seeds (phytotoxicity), cells (cytotoxicity and genotoxicity with the in vitro safety profile), and antimicrobial activity. X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 porosimetry, Field Emission Gun – Scanning Electron Microscope (FEG-SEM), zeta potential (ZP), Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDX), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) were used to evaluate the morphological, structural, and textural properties of the AgNPs. XRD diffractogram showed characteristic peaks of a face-centered cubic crystal structure at 38.06° (111); 44.26° (200); 64.45° (220); 77.37° (311) and 81.34° (200). FEG-SEM micrography indicated a predominantly spherical morphology and uniformly distributed structure with an average size of 58.4 ± 19 nm. Moreover, AgNPs demonstrated functional groups characteristics of the reducing agent and the metallic precursor, such as the –OH, –CH, –CO, - CC, and Ag–O stretchings. AgNPs showed SBET = 0.3 ± 0.0085 m2 g−1, Dp = 16.2 ± 10.2 nm, Vp = 0.0008 ± 0.0002 cm³ g−1 and ZP = −27.6 ± 1.9 mV with hysteresis type H1 and mesoporous characteristics. EDX analysis indicated the presence of AgNPs (72.34 wt% and 10.46 wt% silver and oxygen respectively) indicating the effectiveness of the biosynthesis process. For the in vitro safety profile, AgNPs did not show cytotoxicity on VERO cells ranging from 0.5 to 150 μg mL−1 with a good gemoprotection. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) showed that AgNPs have an inhibition of 312 μg mL−1 and 156 μg mL−1 on Gram-positive and Gram-negative strains, respectively. The phytotoxicity showed that only high concentrations (50 and 100 μg mL−1) of AgNPs interfered with seed growth. Therefore, AgNPs biosynthesized from l-ascorbic acid (AA) have potential applications as antimicrobial dressings and are biocompatible for application in skin lesions.
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