Synthesis of spheroid shaped silver nanoparticles using Indian traditional medicinal plant Flacourtia indica and their in vitro anti-proliferative activity

The silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) synthesized by physical and chemical methods are not much desirable due to the use of high energy consumption, environmentally toxic and biological hazards chemicals. Therefore green synthesis of AgNPs using natural plant extract is more appropriate method. Hence, in the present work we have employed an anti-cancer plant, which is used in Indian system of medicine Flacourtia indica to develop the AgNPs and also revealed their anticancer potential in Dalton Lymphoma Ascites (DLA) cell line model. Among the solvent extracts of F. indica, methanol extract was found to contain higher level of yield (5.14 g/100 g) and total phenolic compounds (9104 mg gallic acid equivalents/L) with good antioxidant power. Hence the preparation of methanolic extract from F. indica was optimized using Response Surface Methodology (RSM), which indicated that 88% of methanol concentration, 50 °C of temperature and 88 min of extraction time results in higher phenolic yield. The optimized F. indica extract strongly reduced the silver into AgNPs. The synthesized AgNPs were characterized using Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy scanning (major peak at 455 nm), transmission electron microscopy (particle size of 14-24 nm) and zeta potential (−15 mV). The higher level of anti-proliferative activity (76.97%) was noted for AgNPs when compared to crude extract in DLA cell line model through cytotoxicity assay.