Facile synthesis of Fe2O3, Fe2O3@CuO and WO3 nanoparticles: characterization, structure determination and evaluation of their biological activity

Abstract

Due to their high specific surface area and its characteristic's functionalized nanomaterials have great potential in medical applications specialty, as an anticancer. Herein, functional nanoparticles (NPs) based on iron oxide Fe₂O₃, iron oxide modified with copper oxide Fe₂O₃@CuO, and tungsten oxide WO₃ were facile synthesized for biomedical applications. The obtained nanomaterials have nanocrystal sizes of 35.5 nm for Fe₂O₃, 7 nm for Fe₂O₃@CuO, and 25.5 nm for WO₃. In addition to octahedral and square nanoplates for Fe₂O₃, and WO_3; respectively. Results revealed that Fe₂O₃, Fe₂O₃@CuO, and WO₃ NPs showed remarked anticancer effects versus a safe effect on normal cells through cytotoxicity test using MTT-assay. Notably, synthesized NPs e.g. our result demonstrated that Fe₂O₃@CuO exhibited the lowest IC₅₀ value on the MCF-7 cancer cell line at about 8.876 µg/ml, compared to Fe₂O₃ was 12.87 µg/ml and WO₃ was 9.211 µg/ml which indicate that the modification NPs Fe₂O₃@CuO gave the highest antiproliferative effect against breast cancer. However, these NPs showed a safe mode toward the Vero normal cell line, where IC₅₀ were monitored as 40.24 µg/ml for Fe₂O₃, 21.13 µg/ml for Fe₂O₃@CuO, and 25.41 µg/ml for WO₃ NPs. For further evidence. The antiviral activity using virucidal and viral adsorption mechanisms gave practiced effect by viral adsorption mechanism and prevented the virus from replicating inside the cells. Fe₂O₃@CuO and WO₃ NPs showed a complete reduction in the viral load synergistic effect of combinations between the tested two materials copper oxide instead of iron oxide alone. Interestingly, the antimicrobial efficiency of Fe₂O₃@CuO NPs, Fe₂O₃NPs, and WO₃NPs was evaluated using E. coli, S. aureus, and C. albicans pathogens. The widest microbial inhibition zone (ca. 38.45 mm) was observed with 250 mg/ml of WO₃ NPs against E. coli, whereas using 40 mg/ml of Fe₂O₃@CuO NPS could form microbial inhibition zone ca. 32.86 mm against S. aureus. Nevertheless, C. albicans was relatively resistant to all examined NPs. The superior biomedical activities of these nanostructures might be due to their unique features and accepted evaluations.

Keywords: Anticancer; Antiviral; Biological activity evaluations; Fe2O3; Fe2O3@CuO; Functionalized nanomaterials; Medical applications; WO3.

Scheme 1

Schematic diagram showing in brief the synthesis procedure of Fe₂O₃, Fe₂O₃@CuO and WO₃ NPs.

Figure 1

XRD pattern of synthesized magnetic NPs and their matched patterns as Fe₂O₃, Fe₂O₃@CuO and WO₃ (a–c); respectively.

Figure 2

FT-IR spectra of synthesized magnetic NPs as Fe₂O₃, Fe₂O₃@CuO and WO₃ (down-to-up); respectively.

Figure 3

SEM micrographs of synthesized magnetic NPs of Fe₂O₃, Fe₂O₃@CuO and WO₃, where all images were taken at (original magnification 5000X and 10,000X, scale 10 and 5 µm and applied voltage at 20 kV).

Figure 4

EDAX analysis of synthesized magnetic NPs of Fe₂O₃, Fe₂O₃@CuO and WO₃.

Figure 5

Survey of the inhibitory concentration ranges of Fe₂O₃@CuO NPs, Fe₂O₃ NPs, and WO₃ NPs against some human pathogens including E. coli, S. aureus, and C. albicans.

Figure 6

Antimicrobial activity of Fe₂O₃@CuO NPs (A); Fe₂O₃ NPs (B) and WO₃ NPs (C) against tested human pathogens.

Figure 7

Antimicrobial activity of Fe₂O₃@CuO NPs (10 mg/ml, 20 mg/ml, 30 mg/ml, and 40 mg/ml); Fe₂O₃ NPs (10 mg/ml, 15 mg/ml, 20 mg/ml, and 25 mg/ml), and WO₃ NPs (100 mg/ml, 150 mg/ml, 200 mg/ml, and 250 mg/ml) against different human pathogens compared to various conventional antibiotics as controls, including 5 µg of Ciprofloxacin, 10 µg of Penicillin, and 10 mg of Ampicillin.

Figure 8

IC₅₀ charts through MTT-assay of synthesized Fe₂O₃, Fe₂O₃@CuO and WO₃ NPs with different concentrations using Vero (normal cell line) (up) and MCF-7 (cancer cell line) (down).

Figure 9

Chart of viral adsorption mechanism represented against Adino virus.