Facile and cost-effective synthesis and characterization of hormone stabilized biocompatible gold nanoparticles for...

Metal nanoparticles possess unique characteristic features suitable for biomedical and other biological applications such as antimicrobial activity to drug delivery. Non-toxic, biocompatible nanoparticles are essential for these applications. Many of previously described methods applied heat or boiling and toxic chemicals like SDS, beta mercaptoethanol, EDTA, sodium citrate for nanoparticles synthesis. The present research emphasizes the synthesis of the gold nanoparticles using a non-toxic reducing and stabilizing agent sodium thyroxine through a facile, cost effective, and eco-friendly method. The formation of gold nanoparticles was confirmed in the UV-visible spectrophotometer with a SPR peak at 522 nm. The synthesized gold nanoparticles were spherical shape and the particles size were found to be < 15 nm in HR-TEM instrumental analysis. Further, physicochemical characterization of the nanoparticles was analyzed by DLS, zeta potential, XRD, and FT-IR. In-vitro hemolytic assay and ESR estimation results revealed that the synthesized gold nanoparticles were more hemocompatible with human RBCs up to 500 µg/mL. Additionally, Vero and A549 cell lines were used to determine the nanoparticles biocompatibility using in-vitro MTT assay, wound healing assay, cell morphology analysis, and DNA fragmentation study. The in-vivo toxicity of the synthesized gold nanoparticles was analyzed by Hydra magnipapillata that result exhibited the biocompatibility of nanoparticles upto 600 µg/mL. Further, the biocompatibility of nanoparticles was confirmed by the morphological studies, feeding behavior, hydra regeneration study, and apoptosis analysis. Therefore, this gold nanoparticle can be utilized for various biomedical applications like drug delivery, gene delivery, photothermal therapy, biosensing, antimicrobial activity and bio-imaging.