Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Nucleus https://doi.org/10.1007/s13237-019-00293-0 REVIEW ARTICLE Cytotoxic and mutagenic effects of green silver nanoparticles in cancer and normal cells: a brief review Arpan Dey Bhowmik 1  · Arindam Bandyopadhyay 1  · Ansuman Chattopadhyay 1 Received: 30 June 2019 / Accepted: 13 August 2019 © Archana Sharma Foundation of Calcutta 2019 Abstract Applications of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have revolutionized the medicinal industry. Due to small size (1–100 nm) these nanoparticles are able to cross cell and nuclear membrane and induce cyto/genotoxicity. Green synthesized (plant based) AgNPs (GSAgNPs) have emerged as alternative antimicrobial agent to chemically synthesized nanoparticles assuming their methods of synthesis will be environment friendly and non toxic. In this review we report that the GSAgNPs were found to be cytotoxic and genotoxic to different cancer cell lines. They affected cell proliferation caused apoptosis and cell death of human cancer cells but did not cause such damages to normal human peripheral blood lymphocyte cells. This property can be utilized in cancer therapeutics to overcome the major drawbacks of chemotherapeutics with surface modifications of the nanoparticles by adding functionalized AgNPs. Keywords Green silver nanoparticles · Cytotoxicity · Genotoxicity · DNA damage · Cancer cell lines · Normal human lymphocytes Introduction Nanotechnology, an expanding area of research, deals with the synthesis of materials at the nanometer scale (ranging from approximately 1–100 nm in size) for the desired appli- cations. Among the various nanoparticles, AgNPs received the attention of the researchers because of its unique physi- cal, chemical and biological properties [24]. Silver nano- particles contain 20–15,000 silver atoms (Ag 0 ) [15]. Due to the antibacterial, fungicidal and antiviral properties, silver (Ag) based compounds are widely used in water purifica- tion in hospitals, wound or burn dressing, wood preserva- tion and in medicine [6]. AgNPs are also used in chemical and molecular sensing because they can generate surface plasmon resonance (SPR) when excited with light [35]. The behavior of nanomaterial is entirely different from their bulk counterparts with regard to the optical, electronic and catalytic properties [50]. The size of silver particles at the nanoscale (1–100 nm) are able to cross the cell membrane and reach the nucleus to interact with genetic material [18] and induce genotoxicity [60]. Research work revealed that AgNPs are potent anticancer agent [39, 52, 78]. In addition to these, reports are available on their high toxic potential against different multidrug-resistant human pathogens [4]. In rats, following subcutaneous injection, it has been found to cross the blood–brain barrier and accumulate in the brain in the form of particles. Accumulation of AgNPs over a long period of time leads to neural degeneration and necrosis [81]. In mammalian cells, at 8–12 µg mL −1 concentration, AgNPs block haemoglobin transcription by changing the methylation status of histone3 (H3) protein [64]. Pratsinis et al. [63] reported that AgNPs are toxic to macrophages. AgNPs induce oxidative stress, alter cellular redox balance and damage genetic material which may lead to the apoptotic cell death [41]. At present, 24% of nanoproducts contain AgNPs in their ingredients [47]. AgNPs are reported to leach out readily from many consumer products [31]. Therefore the increase in interest of its wide usage in nanotechnology raises safety concerns also. When AgNP interacts with sulfide ion, it can induce microbial growth. The toxic effect of AgNPs depends on the Ag ions, associated with it and when they form sta- ble complexes they may not manifest toxicity. This provides an insight to neutralize the toxic potential of such AgNPs or to create toxic substances according to the requirement * Ansuman Chattopadhyay chansuman1@gmail.com 1 Department of Zoology, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal 731235, India