Albumin coated cadmium nanoparticles as chemotherapeutic agent against MDA-MB 231 human breast cancer cell line

Abstract

With the aim of dedicating toxicity of cadmium nanoparticles (CdNPs) against invasive breast cancer, with minimum damage to surrounding healthy cells, CdNPs were coated with albumin nanocarrier by nanoprecipitation method and named CdNPs@BSA. The characterization was done by TEM image, DLS and UV–Vis, fluorescence, circular dichroism spectroscopy. The cytotoxic efficacy of the CdNPs@BSA against human breast cancer cells (MDA-MB 231 cells) was examined by MTT assay. Apoptosis, as the mechanism of cell death, was verified by inverted microscopy, fluorescent microscopy, gel electrophoresis and flow cytometry. The role of ROS generation in apoptosis was also studied. It was found that the resulted CdNPs@BSA (diameter of 88 nm and zeta potential of about −18.85 mV) was suitable for penetration in tumour micro vessels. In the form of CdNPs@BSA, the 77% of the secondary structure and almost all of the tertiary structure remain intact. Comparing to CdNPs, CdNPs@BSA could significantly suppress the MDA-MB 231 while they were less toxic on WBCs. Therefore, they could be a brilliant candidate to be used as a chemotherapeutic agent against invasive breast cancer cells.