Emilia sonchifolia leaf extract-mediated green synthesis, characterization, in vitro biological activities, photocatalytic degradation and in vivo Danio rerio embryo toxicity of copper nanoparticles

The green-mediated synthesis of copper nanoparticles is of great interest in nanotechnology and is regarded as a low-cost and environmentally beneficial method. Herein, leaf extract was employed as a reducing and capping agent for the green production of copper nanoparticles. In this work, we focused on the and biological studies of copper nanoparticles, which were evaluated in zebrafish ( ) embryos. The biological effects from the studies of the copper nanoparticles included cytotoxicity (in human cells) and anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial activity. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the greenly produced copper nanoparticles for photocatalysis was also evaluated, and then SEM-EDX, FTIR, XRD, TGA and UV-vis spectroscopy were used to characterise the copper nanoparticles. The results of the toxicity test on zebrafish embryos demonstrated that the green-produced copper nanoparticles had a significantly low harmful effect. According to the results, the copper nanoparticles showed dose-dependent cytotoxicity against human keratinocytes (HaCaT) and human breast cancer cells (MCF-7), which was higher than that of the leaf extract. The green copper nanoparticles also demonstrated more potent anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and anti-diabetic properties. In the photocatalytic experiment, the produced copper nanoparticles successfully degraded the organic methylene blue dye. Thus, it can be concluded that copper nanoparticles can be employed for drug administration in both and settings in biomedical applications. Additionally, as catalysts, these copper nanoparticles can be employed for the removal of organic dyes.