Facile synthesis of gold-nanoparticles by different capping agents and their anticancer performance against liver cancer cells

Abstract Herein, gold -nanoparticles (Au-NPs) were chemically synthesized by the use of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and one of the two capping agents: sodium citrate (SC) or polyethylene glycol (PEG). The prepared Au-NPs by SC (Au/CMC-SC) and PEG (Au/CMC-PG) were compared in morphology, crystallinity, chemistry via FESEM, SAED, FT-IR, XRD, UV–visible spectroscopy, and DLS. The different characterization tools prove the presence of the same chemistry as Au/CMC-NPs and change in the morphology and crystallinity. The morphology of Au/CMC-SC was found as particles in nano-size with a regular and spherical shape. Conversely, the morphology of Au/CMC-PG has irregular shapes. The same functional groups were found in both Au/CMC-SC and Au/CMC-PG which indicate the presence of the same chemical content in the prepared samples. Anticancer action of both prepared gold nanoparticles against liver hepatocellular cells (HepG2) has been investigated. The introduced AuNPs exhibited more significant anticancer action against HepG2 cells at 100 μg concentration of AuNPs. The inhibitory activity of Au/CMC-SC on Hep-G2 cancer cells is superior to that of Au/CMC-PG. The super anticancer activity of Au/CMC-SC is indicated by the extent of the convergence between the cell viability % values of Au/CMC-SC (18%) and the standard drug (9%) used for liver cancer at a dose of 100 μg. The present work provides a simple synthesis approach that will open up a novel probability of functionalized AuNPs for studies in biomedical applications (treatment of HepG2 cells).