Surface chemistry dependent toxicity of inorganic nanostructure glycoconjugates on bacterial cells and cancer cell lines

Surface functionalized nanostructures have outstanding potential in biological applications owing to their target-specific design. In this study, we utilized laboratory synthesized carbohydrate-derivatives (i.e., galactose, mannose, lactose, and cellobiose derivatives) for aqueous one-pot synthesis of gold (Au) and silver (Ag) nanostructure glycoconjugates (NSs), and iron metal-organic framework glycoconjugates (FeMOFs). This work aims to test whether differences in the surface chemistry of the inorganic nanostructures play roles in revealing their toxicities towards bacterial cells and cancerous cell lines. As of the first step, biological activity of AuNSs, AgNSs, and FeMOFs were tested against a variety of gram (−) and gram (+) bacterial strains, where AgNSs possessed moderate to high antibacterial activities against all the tested bacterial strains, while AuNSs and FeMOFs showed their bacterial toxicity mostly depending on the strain. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and Minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) determination studies were performed for the nanostructure glycoconjugates, for which μg/mL MBC values were obtained such as (Cellobiose p-aminobenzoic acid_AgNS) CBpAB_AgNS gave 50 μg/mL MBC value for P.aeruginosa and S.kentucy. The activity of selected sugar ligands and corresponding glycoconjugates were further tested on MDA-MB-231 breast cancer and A549 lung cancer cell lines, where selective anticancer activity was observed depending on the surface chemistry as well. Besides, d-penicillamine was introduced to galectin specific sugar ligand coated AuNS glycoconjugates, which showed very strong anticancer activities even at low doses. Overall, the importance of this work is that the surface chemistry of the inorganic nanostructures can be critical to reveal their toxicity towards bacterial cells and cancerous cell lines. [Display omitted] •Synthesized metal inorganic glycoconjugates protected their antibacterial stability at room temperature over 3 months.•Surface chemistries of the glycoconjugates were the primary factor in their antibacterial and anticancer activities.•Introduction of d-Penicillamine to the AuNSs and AgNSs glycoconjugates advanced their antibacterial activity.•Introduction of d-Penicillamine to the AuNS glycoconjugates strongly enhanced toxicity on breast and lung cancer cell lines.