Toxicity Effect of Silver Nanoparticles on Mice Liver Primary Cell Culture and HepG(2) Cell Line

Nano-silver (AgNP) has biological properties which are significant for consumer products, food technology, textiles and medical applications (e.g. wound care products, implantable medical devices, in diagnosis, drug delivery, and imaging). For their antibacterial activity, silver nanoparticles are largely used in various commercially available products. Thus, the use of nano-silver is becoming more and more widespread in medicine. In this study we investigated the cytotoxic effects of AgNPs on liver primary cells of mice, as well as the human liver HepG(2) cell. Cell viability was examined with MTT assay after HepG(2) cells exposure to AgNPs at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7.5, 10 ppm compared to mice primary liver cells at 1, 10, 50, 100, 150, 200, 400 ppm for 24h. AgNPs caused a concentration-dependent decrease of cell viability in both cells. IC(50) value of 2.764 ppm (µg/mL) was calculated in HepG(2) cell line and IC(50) value of 121.7 ppm (µg/mL) was calculated in primary liver cells of mice. The results of this experiment indicated that silver nanoparticles had cytotoxic effects on HepG(2) cell line and primary liver cells of mice. The results illustrated that nano-silver had 44 times stronger inhibitory effect on the growth of cancerous cells (HepG(2) cell line) compared to the normal cells (primary liver cells of mice). which might further justify AgNPs as a cytotoxic agents and a potential anticancer candidate which needs further studies in this regard.