Fabrication of α-Fe2O3 Nanostructures: Synthesis, Characterization, and Their Promising Application in the Treatment of Carcinoma A549 Lung Cancer Cells

Indresh Kumar; Rashmi Nayak; Lal Babu Chaudhary; Vashist Narayan Pandey; Sheo K Mishra; Narendra Kumar Singh; Abhishek Srivastava; Surendra Prasad; Radhey Mohan Naik

doi:10.1021/acsomega.2c02083

Fabrication of α-Fe₂O₃ Nanostructures: Synthesis, Characterization, and Their Promising Application in the Treatment of Carcinoma A549 Lung Cancer Cells

ACS Omega. 2022 Jun 13;7(25):21882-21890. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.2c02083. eCollection 2022 Jun 28.

Authors

Indresh Kumar¹, Rashmi Nayak², Lal Babu Chaudhary², Vashist Narayan Pandey³, Sheo K Mishra⁴, Narendra Kumar Singh¹, Abhishek Srivastava⁵, Surendra Prasad⁶, Radhey Mohan Naik¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Lucknow, Lucknow 226007, U.P., India.
² Plant Diversity Systematics and Herbarium Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow 226001, U.P., India.
³ Experimental Botany and Nutraceutical Laboratory, Department of Botany, DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur 273009, U.P., India.
⁴ Department of Physics, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak 484887, M.P., India.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, GLA University, Mathura 281406, U.P., India.
⁶ School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji.

Abstract

In the present work, iron nanoparticles were synthesized in the α-Fe₂O₃ phase with the reduction of potassium hexachloroferrate(III) by using l-ascorbic acid as a reducing agent in the presence of an amphiphilic non-ionic polyethylene glycol surfactant in an aqueous solution. The synthesized α-Fe₂O₃ NPs were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, dynamic light scattering, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry. The powder X-ray diffraction analysis result confirmed the formation of α-Fe₂O₃ NPs, and the average crystallite size was found to be 45 nm. The other morphological studies suggested that α-Fe₂O₃ NPs were predominantly spherical in shape with a diameter ranges from 40 to 60 nm. The dynamic light scattering analysis revealed the zeta potential of α-Fe₂O₃ NPs as -28 ± 18 mV at maximum stability. The ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry analysis shows an absorption peak at 394 nm, which is attributed to their surface plasmon vibration. The cytotoxicity test of synthesized α-Fe₂O₃ NPs was investigated against human carcinoma A549 lung cancer cells, and the biological adaptability exhibited by α-Fe₂O₃ NPs has opened a pathway to biomedical applications in the drug delivery system. Our investigation confirmed that l-ascorbic acid-coated α-Fe₂O₃ NPs with calculated IC₅₀ ≤ 30 μg/mL are the best suited as an anticancer agent, showing the promising application in the treatment of carcinoma A549 lung cancer cells.